Toilet Trained Finally!

It has been a long-drawn battle to toilet train Jaide. It started all the way from last year September when I wrote a post about it. For the longest time, she had been able to make it in time for the big businesses. However, she was EXTREMELY headstrong with regards to going to the toilet to pee. I really wish I could get inside the mind of my little wilful princess to know what actually went on in her mind when she refused to be toilet trained. 

Thankfully, the teachers in school helped by letting her go diaper-less during the three hours daily school-time since June. We discovered that she was completely capable of holding her urine and relieving herself appropriately if she wanted to. It baffled me to no end why she simply didn't want to cooperate at home. I tried all the methods which worked for the older two kids but everything failed. Even the stickers method didn't make a difference. Her older sister had been such a darling to try brainwashing her too but to no avail. 

Given the crazy schedule I manage each day, I really do not have the extra energy and the presence of mind to start a boot camp. I simply can't spare the time neither to clean up her "accidents", borne out of pure pigheadedness, nor continuously manhandle her to the toilet.

For some strange reason, (perhaps prompted by the Holy Spirit?) I decided that enough is enough. Earlier this week, I went and invested in a full set of Hello Kitty panties, personally hand-picked by the obnoxious girl herself. I told her that if she were to refuse going to the toilet and blatantly choose to wet herself, I would give her pretty underwear away to someone else more teachable. It somehow did the trick. There have been no accidents so far for the past two days. 

What a blood-vomiting journey! *faintz* I can only pray that by the grace of God, Jaide will eventually blossom into the godly and powerful leader I saw in my vision during one of my prayer sessions over her... For now, I can only see a wilful child hell-bent on driving me up the wall everyday. But then again, the righteous shall walk by faith and not by sight, right? *wink*

Walking Outside

The long awaited moment has arrived. Joram had donned his very first pair of shoes and walked outside of the house for the first time! *fanfare* He is simply adorable toddling around in the library. Thankfully, he is far more docile than his cheeky brother who ran all over the place and pulled down tons of books from the shelves gleefully the moment he first set foot there 6 years ago...

These crocs handed down
by his siblings are already
too tight for him.

"Dry-RUN" at home *hiak hiak*

Watch Joram explore the library on his own two feet.

Couple Time

It was so wonderful for hubby to take me out for a nice lunch on a weekday. What a rare treat! Even though it was only for 2 hours, we managed to try two dishes I'd wanted to sample for the longest time but was difficult and costly to do so with the kids around: egg benedict and the 8 international flavoured Xiao Long Bao. 

My fav flavours were the cheese, foie gras and sze chuan. I thought the crab roe and black truffle were rather disappointing. As for Joshua, he found the crab roe and cheese to his liking. So perhaps if we ever do bring the kids down to Paradise Dynasty, we can simply order the cheese flavoured ones. I suppose when it comes to kids, you can't go wrong with cheese, right?

Collagen Jelly

Didn't know that I needed
to use a straw at first. :P

Trying for the
"Chee Ko Pek" look