Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Our Quality Time with Zara

I have stopped going to the office for a while, and have been working from home for the past 1 month. I take over the caring for Zara from Tuyam at 6:30pm as she has to prepare dinner. What we'll do is go to the park together, or have some water fun before she takes her bath. Then we'll have dinner together at the table (Tuyam will feed her), normally this is when Daddy comes back. After dinner, we'll watch a video or to do some drawing together. At about 9pm, I'll prepare her for bed, and Zara knows her bed time routine. She has to wash her hands first or she can't touch or get on the bed. Then it's teeth brushing, followed by changing her into her pajamas. I'll get her to play on her own or get Daddy to watch over her, while I take my night shower. After that, we let her choose 2 books from her stack which we will read to her. After reading (up to 3 times a book, sometimes), we'll just talk about what we read from the book. Sometimes she tries to 'read' us the book; sometimes she just talk about the story or book. Like when we read Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, she would say something like "Zara like porridge also." "Zara don't like hot poridge, Zara like warm warm one." "Zara got Daddy, Mummy, and Zara." "Zara like soft soft bed. Can roll here roll there." etc. This is a good time to get her talking. If she's still full of energy, we'll do some singing, or else, I'll make her bottle of milk, turn the lights off and have her drink her milk. This is the time Daddy will say his good night, and leave the room. After her milk, I'll kiss her good night, "Good night Zara, sweet dreams." and she'll repeat, "Good night mummy, sweet dreams." If she didn't drift off to sleep immediately, she would start telling me what she wants to dream about. I don't know if she understood what dream is, but she would go .. "Dream about...Small small cheese. Cold cold, yummy yummy one. Zara like." "and then... chocolate. Sweet sweet one! Very yummy. Zara put in the mouth." "Dream about... swimming. Zara swim swim with dolphins. Water cold cold. So nice!" "Dream about.. the zoo. Zara see lion, elephant, giraffe.." etc etc I'll just be the facilitaor and prompt her to tell me more, but let her do all the talking. Sometimes I get too tired, and I'll drift off to sleep before her. Sometimes, I can hear the last word coming out from her mouth, and the next thing, she's sound asleep. This is the quality time we have with her, daily, unless I have a night meeting to attend and Tuyam has to tuck her to bed.

17 comments:

Egghead said...

so much bed time activities ah? sleep 12am ah? :P

Princess Mom said...

its good that u are spending time with Zara before baby is born. Thats what I did during my last trimester. I spent a lot of quality time with Harvynna as I knew once Rowena was born, I will have to divide the attention

may said...

so nice that you could work from home and spend some time with Zara baby!

I would love to work from home too. spend quality time with myself. and with friends at Starbucks... *grin*

geeth said...

Yaloh.. so many activities after getting into bed.. I sure sleep by the time she sleeps :P

Good that she is spending time with you..

I notice daddy slides off the putting her to sleep? Always? ;)

IMMomsDaughter said...

Your company gives u that flexibility meh? So good ah!

Your nightly routine sounds like mine too. It normally takes an hour for me to put Mei Mei to sleep after the change, reading, singing and talking. Oh yes, if I am too tired, sometimes I do zzzzz first before she goes :)

IMMomsDaughter said...

Your company gives u that flexibility meh? So good ah!

Your nightly routine sounds like mine too. It normally takes an hour for me to put Mei Mei to sleep after the change, reading, singing and talking. Oh yes, if I am too tired, sometimes I do zzzzz first before she goes :)

Mother Superior said...

Your company's good on you. I know of many other women who would crave for your kind of arrangement. But, do you find yourself distracted at times at home from doing work?

Oh well, Zara is soon gonna lose her share of attention when baby comes. So good that you have some time with her.

blurblur said...

Really envy you, can work from home, but i bet you have very good self discipline to be able to do that. :)

She's so cute, 'dreaming' about her dream...hehe..;)

ZMM said...

Egghead,
No la.. By the time she gets changed to the time she knocks off, it takes about 1hr.. so normally by 10pm she'll be asleep.

Hmom,
Actually I have been doing this all the while, but now b'cos I work from home, I can start spending time with her at 6:30pm. If I go to the office, I'm able to spend time with her starting from about 8pm.

May,
Hmm.. maybe you should think about working for Starbucks.. to sustain your WIFI habit and get free coffee fixes. :P
Or, get your own Starbucks francise!

Geetha,
Esp now that I'm pregnant.. by 10pm my eyes can't hold on open any longer.
She won't let Daddy tuck her in, and anyway, Daddy doesn't know how to distract her. The minute she said wants mummy, Daddy will bring her to me, even when I'm in a meeting! So only myself and Tuyam can tuck her in.

Immomsdaugther,
Eh, who handles your boy?
The only thing is I find I have no time for myself, but I told myself this period is very important for her, so I don't mind doing it for now.

Mother Superior,
I do get distracted occasionally. But I think it's healthy. Like I go down to give Zara a hug, or get a glass of water a few times in a day, it's a bit like working in the office where you go to the pantry to flip the newspaper, or to chat with a couple of people.
No one works 100% of the time.
I'll have to figure out how to split my time between the 2 of them when the next one arrives.

Blurblur,
Actually, I haven't told my boss that I plan to work from home most of the time.. wonder what he'll say. :P
Yeah.. those are really nice moments to see her yakking away.

sesame said...

Isn't that so nice? I've always thought the bedtime routine is the nicest of the hours I spend with Gavin. Like you, I hardly get the maid to make him sleep unless I am ill. In fact, Gavin sleeps about the same time as Zara. 9pm is also the time I prepare him for bed and we start reading and talking.

Vien said...

I'm trying to read to Belle, quite unsuccessful. She gets distracted easily. Maybe she is still too young. :P When did you start reading to Zara?

mom2ashley said...

sounds like you got everything undere control there. lucky you!

Helen said...

WOw, after work you still have enough energy to do all these?? INcredible! lol

Any plans for Zara to have her own room when baby comes?

Jess said...

Wow, her dream full of imagination!..yup, wonder she know what's dream about! :P

Samm said...

Wahlau, so many routines. For me, lights out, tv out, pc monitor out.... means sleep. NON-NEGOTIABLE.

ZMM said...

Sesame,
Yes, this is the best time in fact.. and we can have some quiet and quality time together.

YL,
Daddy sleep with us, but his bed time is very much later, and I don’t want him to be in the room because Zara will get distracted and can’t go to sleep. So, he has to leave the room and only return once she’s asleep. :P

Simple American,
Wow.. this tradition is still going on in your family? That’s nice. I should remind myself to do something similar too.
It does pay off, as she’s very close to me, and she really picks up lots of words and sentence making through all these talking.

Vien,
I started reading to her quite early actually. She didn’t have much interest in the beginning. Then I bought this board books with real baby photos on it calls Baby Boo!. That was when she started getting hooked on books.
Btw, you know at this age, they like pictures of real object than cartoons drawing? They can relate to the photographed object than a drawing.

Mom2Ashley,
It’s all hell break loose though when I have a night meeting and my maid has to tuck her in.. There’ll be lots of screaming and shouting, but I just pretend I didn’t hear them.

Helen,
That’s why it’s all reading, watching TV, talking.. No playing or chasing her around, and most of the time I fall asleep earlier than her. :P
Err.. I think she’ll be sleeping with us for a while. Both the kids. Luckily we have a super big room.

Jesslyn,
I don’t think she knows.. because nowadays when she wants to talk nonsense, she’ll start the sentence with “Dream about…. “

Samm,
But you spend the whole day with Gordon, so it’s different. I only get to spend the 2 to 3hrs towards the end of the day with her. So I maximize the fun.

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