Review of 2017

It's really a very delayed post of my review of what happened last year. But then, I don't wish to give up detailing our journey, so here it is.

1. Ting Ting development
Despite being so busy with my studies and work, I'm always keeping my eye on her well-being and development. I'm really proud of her development.

a) Reading
She can now read a book by herself independently. She can read those stage 3-4 books by herself and can recognised complex words. She did it all by herself without any special intervention. It just happened gradually. I guess the consistent reading books regime at night helps a lot. Up till now, we will still read books every night together without fail. This has become our fixed regime and an intimate bonding time to cuddle together to read books every night.

b) Conversing
She speaks well, and often, I received compliments from my friends or relatives and sometimes even strangers (cos she likes to mingle with their kids) that she can speak relatively well for her age.

c) Social
She likes to make friends. She will shared with me who are her best friends in school and not so best friend and etc. I noticed she can make friends easily now as compared to previous. For e.g. whenever we bring her to a new playground, she will try to mingle with other kids and made friends with them and played together. All these were done by herself without our interventions.

d) Learning
She loves going to her school (Childcare centre) now. Her teachers also shared with me that she is progressing well in the school and marked her learning as excellent (5 stars!) for topics relating to English language. But well, for Mandarin, she still got a long way to go haha. She only got 3 stars for her Mandarin learning. Oh well, what an irony. Her mummy, used to be a 5 stars student for Mandarin, and 2 stars student for English lolx....So Mandarin is something I need to continue working on with her.

e) Changing and bathing
She can now change clothes and bathe by herself. So actually, I don't really need to do much. And this really helps to relieve my caregiving a lot as she is independent.

f) Emotional regulation
She could manage her emotions better with lesser tantrums and outbursts. She can comprehend better why sometimes we unable to accede to her requests as we explain to her. I felt that even though she is still at young age, but then, we cannot treat her like baby and brush her off without proper explanation on the rationale why certain things cannot be done according to her wishes. However at times, she still had some of her outbursts, which recently i found a better way to manage that, but that will be in another posting for 2018.

g) Roller Skating
She took up roller skating class and she loved it! She was able to roller skate independently by the 2nd lesson. Her instructor also shared with me that she is pretty fast for her age as compared to the others. So far I noticed that she can advanced very fast and well in physical activities like cycling, scooting, roller blading. It is good that she takes after her daddy in this aspect 😀.

h) Piano
She took up the Yamaha Junior Class as we felt that it will help her in her development especially emotional regulation. So far she is showing progress but of course needs more practice. This class is also good for us as parents too. As we can get to learn together with her as one parent need to sit in with the child during the lesson. So me and hubby takes turn to go in with her, and in the process we both learn how to play piano too. It makes the $$ worthwhile haha 😆

2. Studies
I finally completed my graduate diploma studies! Yeah! And I managed to get quite good results too in which I was consistent in achieving the same GPA every semester. It actually surprised me considering the challenges of my increased workload, and the juggling of my family committment. This is something which I'm happy that my hard work had paid off! But I think what helped me in this process, was the support i had from my family especially my mother and husband. Especially during times I need to do my assignments, they will help to manage my gal so that I could concentrate in doing my work. Family support is especially important to me and I'm really thankful and grateful for the love and support I have which helped me completed my studies with good results.

3. Parenting
Despite the busy schedule, we took time to attend parenting talks and course together as this was an area of our conflict. I must say, attending such parenting talks and course works for us as we are now more calibrated in our parenting approach. We both agreed to cut down on giving our gal gadgets and limit her exposure on screen time. We were also more aware of our parenting styles and learned how to cultivate a more warm yet authoritative parenting style. I think this is really a good progress for our parenting and marital relationship too.


4. Work
Work load is increasing as my honeymoon period was over (long ago) haha. At times, there were frustrating moments about the work process, systems and etc, coupled with school workload (tight assignments dateline). It was a really stressful period. Looking back, I don't know how I managed to scrap through that.

I guess it helps with having supportive and understanding supervisor and bosses which I'm really thankful of.  This really helps a lot in navigating through the work environment and stressors especially when working with some challenging situations. There are bound to have challenges in human relations I think, as human beings are complex. Sometimes, things which I thought is simple and straightforward, could be interpreted differently by others. Something which I'm still trying my best to adapt and learn. Anyway, it is difficult to please everyone I think. I shall continue to focus in my work, as this is something which I'm passionate about and hope to make a difference!

5. Social
Despite having busy schedule, I managed to reconcile the previous conflict with my group of long time friends and had regular gatherings with them, celebrating each other birthdays. Come to think of it, 30 over years of friendship is really something to be cherish. We all knew each other at a very young age, when we were innocent and silly. We knew one another inside out, and accepted each and everyone of our flaws. It is not easy to maintain friendship of more than 30 years.

I also made some new friends with my neighbours and Ting Ting classmates' mothers. It's been a long time I made new friends haha. I'm actually an introvert. But because of my gal, I yearned to connect with other parents to learn about their parenting and exchange ideas, so that helps in opening up myself.


6. House renovation
Remember i was sharing my Home Improvement Project idea previously? Yes, I managed to fulfil that as well, with minimal wastage and cost. What I did was to redesign all my bedrooms,  shifted around my furnitures, removed some old shelvings and bought some new furnitures. We also did some painting by ourselves, which I'm extremely proud about it. We bought the odourless paint due to its minimal VOC level.  All in all, we spent < $500 for the mini renovation and we got a much more spacious space for our bedrooms. This was something which I'm really happy about!

Conclusion
2017 was a stressful and hectic year for me. But I'm glad that I'm able to achieve most of my goals which I had set at the beginning of the year, with the strong support of my family! There are 2 goals which I did not managed to hit, but i shall not give up. I had made some new goals for myself including the unfulfilled goals of 2017 at the beginning of this year. I hoped with discipline and determination, I can achieved these goals!

Wish me luck! 😉