Estelle: Mummy ask Estelle what is her favourite animal.
(She does the scripting for her mum these days, it’s pretty cute to be told what to say. haha. To a certain extent.)
Me: Estelle, what is your favourite animal?
Estelle: Elephants.
Me: Oh really?
(I thought kangaroos were her favourite. Hmm.)
Estelle: Yeah, 2 elephants.
Me: What are their names?
(Thinking that perhaps she had some make-believe elephant friends I should know about…)
Estelle: African and Asian elephants.
Hmm! This is interesting. I used to play her these videos during her meal times when she was young. It was great entertainment and it certainly helped to keep an infant’s head in one direction when feeding mushy stuff. (I tried the same with Amelie, but Amelie would have none of it. Preferring something more sophisticated such as Baby Einstein and Little Einsteins. Ah well.)
Anyway, we haven’t played that for a while, and it was certainly interesting that Estelle managed to recall one of the highlights in the videos, that there are 2 main types of elephants. The videos also highlighted that one of the main obvious differences is the size of ears… So I thought I’ll probe further.
Me: So who has bigger ears?
Estelle: (thought for a while) Big elephants have BIG ears, baby elephants have baby ears.
Can’t fault that! Hahahaha
After dinner at Jurong Point with SSAY, we thought we’d go for a quick stroll in ToysRUs (yeah, asking for trouble? Hahaha.) I had a voucher that needed spending.
But, there wasn’t much that caught my eye… we were about to give up when we spotted a $10 Little Mermaid. Perfect! On the way to the counter, however…
Estelle: Mummy, Amelie wants Ariel. Ariel is for Amelie, ok?
Me: Er, ok. Are you sure?
Estelle: Yes, Amelie likes The Little Mermaid.
Pause…
Estelle: Please Mummy, can I have Cinderella? Cinderella is my favourite princess-girl. Cinderella and Ariel can be best friends, like Amelie and Estelle are best friends in the whole world…
Ok… how do you resist this?
Quietly enjoying her snack after a yummy 3 hour (!!) nap this afternoon…
Look Mummy, a stone!
Licking up every last drop of the yummy plum juice…
There was a strange silence in the house…
Did I mention silence?
SILENCE! An unheard of phenomenon in this household.
It can be so spooky and eerie, and yet, it can also be so deafening. Especially when it happens at the most unexpected hour of the day - straight after dinner, and especially when you know Estelle is not sleeping.
For a moment, I freaked out. Where is that girl? A quick search in our mansion (oh, it took about 2 seconds?) revealed the following scene…
Her: Hey Mum!
Me: What are you doing?
Her: Tea party with the Little Einsteins.
Me: Oh okay, enjoy…
Phew.
Then a zillion thoughts zoomed through my mind. Is that MY Estelle starting to play by herself? She can play by HERSELF? She doesn’t need me? What is she saying to her dolls? I need to make Leo and Quincy some clothes. Why didn’t she invite me to her tea party? Do the dolls know how lucky they are?!!
Okay, I am a confirmed neurotic mum.
This morning, I found Estelle glued to the window. She was soooo excited to find the following “rush hour” traffic. It turned out that there was a fire (maybe) from a truck and the fire engine got there, with full siren and all, and put out whatever that needed to be put out… in a huge puff of “cloud”. That was how Estelle described it, that the fire engine had “cloud”.
I missed the whole thing. And on top of that, I nearly snapped at her for standing at the edge of the bed, hugging the window grilles. ARRRGH. Thank goodness I checked out the cause instead. Grumpy Mum Day? Yeah. Thanks to Ms Stuffy Nose who woke up nearly every half hour last night. Poor little Amelie was so miserable and was running a low grade fever too…
A trip to the doctor’s revealed that Amelie is STILL 8 kgs. The same weight as a month ago. No wonder she’s starting looking skinny. 
But she’s still on target to triple her birthweight by her first birthday… Does that make mummy happier? Yeah right.
PS Amelie is cutting her 3rd tooth!
Watching Little Einsteins…
I think it’s a great preschool programme (by the Baby Einsteins Company). I can’t sing their praises enough as Estelle is now pretty familiar with the words Allegro, Adagio, Fortissimo, Pianissimo, Accelerando, Staccato etc. Great introduction to classical music and art.
Her favourite character? June. Amelie’s favourite? Rocket!
When SSAY first bought this T-shirt for Estelle, we all thought it was pretty cute. We had often read the words out to her when she asked us to but no one had explained the deeper meaning of the sentence.
So last night, I was totally unprepared for this…
Me: Estelle, you can’t pick Amelie up by yourself.
Her: I can do it by myself.
Me: Your mum is telling you not to do that.
Her: Daddy said I can.
Me: No he didn’t.
Her: Yes! (pointing to her shirt) Daddy said I can!
Well… since when did T-shirts start getting political at Age 2?
