One of the subjects that I’ve always felt important to teach my children is how to manage money - that is, how to spend wisely, how to invest it and how to save it for a rainy day.  Now that I’m reading “Confessions of a Shopaholic” by Sophie Kinsella, I’m starting to think that it is even more important to teach Gavin about the value of money.

Honestly, I know that there is such a thing as lack of self-control when it comes to spending money.  Heck!  I can be pretty wreckless sometimes, but I’ve never ever allowed myself to come anywhere near the sort of financial situation Beck Bloomwood gets herself into in “Confessions of a Shopaholic”.  Quite frankly, I thought people like that don’t really exist in real life until I remembered my mother telling me about a friend of hers.  Her friend would buy so much stuff that her wardrobe would be filled with clothes that still have price tags on them!

When I was growing up, my mother was very strict with my brother and me when it came to spending money - even money that was given to us as presents.  Although I feel my mother taught us well, I also felt she was a little too harsh.  Everything that we wanted to buy had to be assessed on need.  If it was purely a want, we could forget about it.  If it was something we needed, we had to assess how important that need was and how urgently it needed to be filled.  If it could wait, we would shop around until there was a sale or a cheaper version available.

My mother was about as thrifty as they come.  She knew where all the best bargains were and she knew where every cent went.  She was a walking catalogue of sales and bargains. 

As good as she is at handling money, I also feel my mother is a little too extreme.  Even though we weren’t poor by any means, I often felt deprived as a child.  So much so that once I started earning my own money, I had a tendency to walk into a shop and pay the listed price for an item I wanted just because I wanted it (as long as I could afford it, that is). 

What I want is to teach Gavin to be financially smart without depriving him completely.

Although he’s barely two years old, we have started inculcating the concept of money and needed to pay for things quite early.  There are other benefits from teaching a young toddler about money other just the importance of saving.  For instance, it helps prevent him:

• shop-lifting unintentionally - I had Gavin running out of shops with products in his hand a few times.  Now he knows that we have to go to the cashier and “buy” it first.
• treating the shop like a friend’s house - a few times Gavin brought boxes to me and asked me to “open” it for him.  I had to explain that we can’t open things unless we pay for it first.
• throwing and destroying his belongings because there is some value attached to it - okay so this one isn’t going that well, but at least he’s generally pretty good about not throwing his toys.

To start Gavin off on the right foot, we gave him a piggy bank with coins to put inside the piggy on a daily basis.  Everyday, when my FIL returns from work, he’ll give Gavin some coins to put into his piggy.  Initially, Gavin was excited by activity and would eagerly run to my FIL to get money for his pig.  After a while, when the novelty of inserting coins wore out, he no longer wanted to have anything to do with the pig.

Even though he hasn’t fully understood why he needs money, I’m sure this is one of those lessons that children start to pick up subconsciously.  One day, they’ll surprise you by practicing what you taught them.  Encouraging Gavin to save money in a piggy bank is just the first step to learning how to manage money.

Up until recently, this has not really been a problem for me because Gavin wasn’t really addicted to the TV. Yes, he would ask to watch Thomas and Friends but I’ve notice that he’s usually only half paying attention to the TV and for the other part of the time, his attention is engaged elsewhere. Sometimes, it is almost as if he just wants the background noise from the TV because it brings him some sort of comfort.

Lately, however, he seems to be addicted to watching Signing Time. Although he learns lots of new words from watching these DVDs, I don’t exactly want him to watch TV all day long.  He needs to have other experiences to fill his day and be engaged with other activities.

The only way to separate Gavin from the TV, sometimes, is to take him out.  Whether we go to the park to play or to a shopping mall to run around, the important thing is to leave the house so that his mind is pleasantly engaged with other sights and sounds. 

While I was out with my MIL shopping for a present at the Royal Selangor display store, I discovered a cool new place to take Gavin.  The display store is located on site at the Royal Selangor factory where they manufacture their products.  They also run tours of the factory, showing you historical pewter products, unique products made just for their display and the actual factory itself.

Below: Gavin sitting next to a huge model of a pewter crocodile.  They sell a much smaller version of this crocodile in their collection.

Below: Gavin is fascinated by the view from the bridge, but Ah Mah is feeling a little worried he might slip through the wires.

Below: Gavin enjoys practicing his skills of walking down the stairs. 

Below: the wall of pewter frames.  We were trying to get Gavin to stand in front of one of the frames but he wouldn’t stay still long enough for me to get the shot.

Below: the Bell chamber.  They have lots of different noise-makers in this room - bells, chimes and hollow cylinders.  Our tour guide helps Gavin reach the bells for a closer inspection.

Below: Gavin being shown how to hold the xylophone stick.

Below: Gavin has a go on the pewter xylophone with the help of our tour guide.

Below:  The formula for pewter - antimony, tin and copper.

Below: the Wall of Hands.  All employees who have worked at Royal Selangor for 5 years get a plaque of their hand made and it is posted up on the Wall of Hands.

Below:  When Gavin saw the hands, he immediately thought they were “Signing Time” hands because the Signing Time logo is of two hand prints.

Below: A model of the Petronas Twin Towers made from Royal Selangor pewter mugs.  Our guide told us how many mugs it took to make this but I’ve forgotten.

Below: At the pewter factory, they give you a go at hammering out a pattern on a pewter mug.  It’s a skill that requires a lot of focus. 

I had a video of the lady hammer a row but my connection’s a little unstable tonight so I’m having trouble uploading the video.  I’ve got quite a few videos from the Royal Selangor Pewter Factory visit which I will upload at a later date when my connection is more reliable.

The Royal Selangor tour is free of charge but they also run a “School of Hard Knocks” where they teach you how to make a pewter bowl.  I forget the charges, but I don’t think it’s much.  You also get to keep the bowl you make and the apron.  Gavin’s been pretty keen to go back and learn how to make a bowl because every time he sees the Royal Selangor brochure, he says, “Daddy, Gavin make bowl.”

I thought Gavin might be a little young for the School of Hard Knocks but I’m sure we’ll be bringing him back when he’s older.

I’ve seen Pelikan stationery at Times Bookshop and Parkson but don’t ever buy it from Times.  A box of colour Pelikan colour pencils at Times will cost you something like RM17 but only RM12 at Parkson.

While browsing through MPH Bookstore in 1Utama, I saw this:

It was a Thomas and Friends Carry-Along Colouring Set!  It comes with over 70 pages of colouring and activity pages AND 8 Thomas and Friends crayons:

It’s a good size for Gavin to hold it on his own without it being cumbersome.  And it was all for RM10.90!  What a bargain!

I managed to pry Gavin away from the Thomas and Friends’ section of MPH by promising to buy him the crayons which kept him occupied in the carseat all the way home.

By the time I bought the rest of the DVDs, Gavin was already learning to speak in leaps and bounds (which I think is also partly due to his exposure to Baby Signing Time from the age of 5 months) that it seemed almost pointless to teach him more signs.  Since I already had the new DVDs, I played them for him anyway.  I was glad to see that Gavin loved watching the new Signing Time DVDs.

He has learned a lot from the Signing Time DVDs, for instance, he learned to say the name and correctly identify the following animals in different contexts (from watching Signing Time Series 1 Volume 9: The Zoo Train): rhinoceros, bat, seal, panda, hippopotamus, zebra, tiger, lion, star fish, shrimp, lobster, crab, octopus, monkey, kangaroo, camel, gorilla, elephant, penguin, and giraffe.

The last time we took Gavin to the zoo was when he was 18 months.  At that time, he wasn’t particularly interested in much except for the fish.  Now, he can tell us when he sees zoo animals in books or on Animal Planet.  The only animals he still gets confused with are the sharks, dolphins and whales, which all look pretty similar to him. 

Honestly, if it weren’t for Signing Time, I doubt Gavin would have learned the animals because he wasn’t at all interested in learning about them at all.  Yes, I tried.  I tried to teach him the names of different animals using flash cards but all he wanted to see were his Thomas and Friends trains and any toy or book related to Thomas or a train.  It was only after he started watching The Zoo Train that he started repeating the names of animals he had seen on the DVD.  In fact, it was only after watching Signing Time that he started learning about subjects other than trains and Thomas.

It was also because of watching Signing Time that he can now correctly identify the colours: blue, red, green, yellow, black, pink, purple, and orange (from Series 1 Volume 6: My Favourite Things and Series 2 Volume 12: A Box of Crayons).  Previously, we taught him blue, red and green because they are the most common colours of the engines on Thomas and Friends.  Back then, he only knew the colours by association.  For instance, green would be “Percy” because Percy was the green engine, and blue would be “Thomas” because Thomas was blue.  Now I can pick up a crayon and ask him the colour and he gets it right.

Here’s a snip from A Box of Crayons - one of Gavin’s favourite songs:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9VloMvf1Ls

I was with Gavin in the bookshop recently and another mother of three older boys was observing Gavin.  Gavin was busy picking Thomas books off the shelf and sitting on a little step.  He would then open the book and start identifying the different trains in the book.  The mother asked me how old Gavin was and really impressed with how much he could say after I told her he was nearly 2.

The Signing Time DVDs have also been great for getting Gavin’s cooperation in the carseat because he loves to listen to the songs - which are available on a separate audio CD.  Being already familiar with the songs from watching the DVDs, he keeps asking to listen to them in the car.  I’ve also heard him attempt to sing “Colours of the Rainbow” and “ABC”.  (HL, I tried to record it on video but he became all shy when he spotted the camera.  It is so adorable you’ve got to see it!  Don’t worry, I will catch him at it eventually).

I’ve also noticed something about the way Gavin learns.  He’ll be really interested in only a few DVDs and want to watch those DVDs over and over again.  After a while, he’ll get bored of them and he’ll move on to a new DVD and watch only that one.  Once he’s bored of that one, he moves on again.  No wonder children learn so quickly - they have better focus and they concentrate on mastering one skill before they move on.

I know they say that watching TV isn’t very interactive for children and they don’t learn much but I honestly feel that Gavin has learned a lot from watching Signing Time.  I really feel it is one of the best educational series I’ve bought for Gavin to date.

According to Baby Center and most other books I’ve consulted, the average two year old needs anywhere between 11.5 - 15.5 hours of sleep a day (naps plus overnight sleep).  My target has been to get Gavin to sleep at least 11.5 hours a day (nap plus overnight sleep) because of the evidence showing the negative effects of insufficient sleep on brain development, growth and other physiological effects.  Additionally, a cranky, overtired baby is also very difficult to manage. 

Gavin normally sleeps 10 hours a night plus a two hour nap during the day, although this varies from day to day.  I usually find that if I want him to settle down for his afternoon nap, then taking him out for some vigorous play in the playground or a run around a shopping mall can do wonders to wear him out.  By the time he gets back into the car, he’s ready to knock out on the way home.

Recently, however, I’ve noticed that Gavin has been pushing past his usual limits.  Ordinarily, he’s ready to nap by four to five hours after waking up in the morning.  Between waking up from his nap and going to bed at night, he usually only lasts about six hours, and at the maximum seven hours.  Lately, he’s been pushing six hours between waking up in the morning to afternoon nap and sometimes even longer.  Between his afternoon nap and sleeping for the night, he’s been consistently pushing seven hours.

Even taking him out during the day doesn’t do much for wearing him out.  No matter how tired he looks at the shopping mall or the park, he no longer falls asleep in the carseat on the way home.  When we get home, he can be running around for another hour or two before settling down for his afternoon nap.  If I really want him to sleep earlier, I have to carry and rock him to sleep (usually to his protests if he isn’t ready to sleep).  Although I don’t usually mind the rocking, sometimes, I can’t help wondering as Isil does of her own child - when will Gavin be able to fall asleep without needing to be rocked or to be on the breast?  Even now, sometimes he doesn’t even fall asleep on the breast any more, unless he’s really tired or if I’ve already wound him down considerably by carrying him around the room first.

All of these signs are typical of the time when he dropped his morning nap so I wondered if he might be ready to drop his afternoon nap, too.  Barely even two, I felt it seemed a bit early for it so I checked up on the average age that toddlers stop napping.  According to Baby Center, some toddlers stop by the age of three, while other push on until five or six.  When I check a couple of forums (MedHelp and Momsview), I found that there were Mums whose toddlers had stopped napping altogether by two and some even before that.

There is a wide variation and the important thing to remember is that every toddler is different.  Baby Center also states that some toddlers may skip their afternoon naps if they are already getting sufficient sleep overnight - e.g. 12 or more hours.  In such cases, the afternoon nap is no longer so critical.  Children who sleep less than 12 hours a night are the ones who need to continue their afternoon naps.  However, Baby Center also recommends giving children under the age of 4 some quiet time during the day if they refuse to sleep.

So far, I’ve allowed Gavin to skip his afternoon nap twice.  In the first instance, he had slept more than 12 hours overnight so I felt he had slept sufficiently.  He went to bed much, much earlier than normal (7:30pm as opposed to 10:30pm-12am as he normally does).  The night went well and he slept 14 hours that night. 

Today, when Gavin was resisting his afternoon nap again, I allowed him to stay up and tried to put him to bed earlier.  He fell asleep quite easily but awoke about two hours later crying.  I presumed he was having a night terror which suggests he hadn’t had enough sleep from the previous night.  Although he did go back to sleep and has been sleeping pretty well since.  Admitedly, he probably only got about 10 hours of sleep the night before which might explain the night terrors.

I guess from here on forwards I’m just going to have to work on a day to day basis, playing by ear to see how he goes.  At least now I know that there exists the possibility that his difficulties in falling asleep may be due to him attempting to give up his afternoon naps altogether.  The fact that he dropped his morning naps fairly early on is also a good indication that this could very well be the case.  As long as he’s catching enough hours overnight, I’ve decided not to stress about it.

The only other downside to losing the afternoon nap is that I no longer get a chance to sneak off and do my own thing during the day.  If only he were like my god-daughter - three years old and still sleeping solidly during the day, any time and any place.

December 1 is World AIDS Day.

When I was a student studying about AIDS, I remember watching a documentary about it.  Although it had been around for quite a while, it was only being discovered in the west in the 1980s.  When it first presented, the doctors were stumped.  They were observing young males with lesions from a variety of conditions that normally affect immunocompromised individuals.  Doctors were returning to their medical text books looking in vain for a diagnosis.

Because AIDS was first seen in gay men, it became a stigma that only gay men were susceptible to AIDS.  By the time I learned about AIDS in the late 1990s, AIDS had become more common in heterosexuals than it was in homosexuals, but still the stigma existed among gay men.  Even the signs and symptoms that identified AIDS in the 1980s were no longer the same by the late 1990s.

It isn’t AIDS that kills an individual.  From what I remember learning at the time, what AIDS does is that it compromises an individual’s immunity and leaves them defenseless against normal, everyday infections that don’t normally affect a healthy individual - at least, not in a life-threatening manner.  For instance, a person with AIDS can die from catching the common cold.

It’s funny because I have a very distinct memory of watching a documentary about AIDS which described how the virus affected a patient’s immune system and it went something along the lines of this:

In a normal infection, the body attempts to purge the virus or bacteria by producing antibodies.  Antibodies are made specifically to a specific virus or bacteria and no other.  It is almost like a lock and key system, where the antibodies are the key that fit into the lock of the bacteria.  The unique and deadly thing about HIV is that it keeps changing the locks so the antibodies that the body makes are no longer effective against it.  Then the body makes new antibodies to fit the new lock but by that time, the virus has already changed shape again and the new antibodies don’t work.  The body continually makes antibodies until it is exhausted. 

But the newer literature states that HIV specifically attacks important cells in an individual’s immune system that are important for protecting the body against infections - such as helper T cells, macrophages and the dendritic cells. 

The management for HIV has always been prevention and treatment.  The idea for a cure had long been given up on until a recent bone marrow transplant patient was “cured” of HIV.  Although the “cure” is not conclusive and may not be a viable option for HIV patients currently, it does appear to be a promising light at the end of a rather dim tunnel.

Click here for more information about the World Aids Campaign.

So before I forget all these wonderful things about him in old age, here are another 10 things I love about my son:

1. The sounds he makes in the morning when he’s waking up.
2. The way he “snores” when he’s pretending to sleep.
3. The way he squints his eyes when we tell him to close his eyes.
4. The way he says, “I love you.” (It sounds like “I laf you.”)
5. The way he walks when he’s excited - it’s almost as if he’s practicing to walk down a cat-walk.
6. The way he looks at me for praise when he knows he’s said something clever.
7. The way he self-praises when he says, “Baby did good job, more sticker.”
8. When he tries to cheat to get a better deal.  For instance, I’ll tell him he can only take two trains out because he only has two hands to hold two trains.  Then he’ll pick up two trains and ask me to hold them while he goes back to get another two trains.
9. The way he runs - there is something irresistable about the way a toddler runs.
10. When he knows I’m mad and tries to win me over by doing something really adorable so I can’t help but smile, and then he’ll give me a huge grin as if to say, “How could you stay mad at me when I’m so cute?”

Last month, Canada took the plunge and banned baby bottles made with bisphenol A:

“The Government of Canada led by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, newly re-elected last week, will immediately draft the world’s first regulations to prohibit the importation, sale and advertising of plastic baby bottles that contain the chemical bisphenol A.”

Considering that all the major baby bottle makers (Avent, The First Years, Dr Brown’s, Evenflo, Gerber and Playtex) have all been found to leach bisphenol A in quantities deemed harmful, I think this ban has had an enormous effect on the industry of baby bottles.  Incidentally, Dr Brown’s was shown to be the worst of the lot.  Here is a summary of the findings:

• Popular brands Avent, Disney/The First Years, Dr. Brown’s, Evenflo, Gerber, and Playtex market baby bottles that leach bisphenol A when heated;
• The laboratory tests detected between 5-8 ng/ml (parts per billion) bisphenol A leached from all bottles when heated;
• Based on over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles on bisphenol A, we conclude that the amount leaching from heated bottles is within the range shown to cause harm in animal studies and is therefore a health concern for infants;
• Dr. Brown’s brand bottles had the overall highest levels of bisphenol A leaching, while Avent brand bottles had the overall lowest levels of leaching in U.S. bottles; Canadian results differ. The levels of bisphenol A leaching increased dramatically when the bottles were heated, with highest concentrations reported from Dr. Brown’s brand bottles. These findings are significant as baby bottles are often heated, and/or very warm liquids are poured into bottles;
• Heating bottles to 80°C provides evidence of leaching when bottles are heated; heating to 80°C has been found to simulate 60–100 bottle washings and normal wear and use conditions;

What’s the issue with bisphenol A in baby bottles?

“BPA, a synthetic sex hormone that mimics estrogen, is used to make hard polycarbonate plastic. Ninety-five percent of all baby bottles on the market are made with bisphenol A. The results of the U.S. study show that, when new bottles are heated, those manufactured by Avent, Evenflo, Dr. Brown’s and Disney/First Years leached between 4.7 – 8.3 parts per billion of bisphenol A. Recent research on animals shows that bisphenol A can be harmful by disrupting development at doses below these levels.”

Bisphenol A has been found to affect future fertility of infants, cause behavioural problems, and increases risk of developing breast and prostate cancer later in life.

If you search online, you will still find a lot of reassurance that although bottles made with bisphenol A do leach, they are safe to use.  Naturally manufacturers of bisphenol A products, e.g. Tupperware, have issued statements reassuring the safety of their products, including those containing bishenol A (although it should be added that not all Tupperware products contain bisphenol A).  Even the FDA has concluded that the “trace amounts of bisphenol A leaching from bottles is not a threat to infants or adults”.

All the same, whenever there is controversy over the safety of a product, I believe it is always best to err on the side of caution.  Earlier this year, I switched the plastic bottles I was using to store Gavin’s water to the stainless steel Klean Kanteen bottles recommended to me by my BFF.  Ironically, I was still drinking from polycarbonate bottles myself up until yesterday, although I wouldn’t let Gavin have any water from it.  It was only when I read about the possible linkage to birth defects and miscarriages that I really sat up and took notice about drinking from polycarbonate bottles myself.

So what are the options if you can’t use plastic bottles?

Ideal Bite recommends Biter Bottles, Sigg (aluminum), Klean Kanteen (stainless steel), Nalgene made from HDPE, or glass bottles insulated with neoprene bottle totes (which provide some protection against possible breakage).  You can find these brands on Reusablebags.com and Nubius Organics.  I can’t say I’ve seen glass bottles being sold these days but VOSS retails their water in reusable glass bottles, although I don’t know how much one bottle of this designer water costs.

Although I use Klean Kanteen for Gavin, one of the downsides to this bottle is that it is heavy.  Hubby used to grumble about Gavin’s go-bag being very heavy and I’ve realised that the bottle contributes significantly to the added weight.  A lighter alternative is an aluminum bottle, like those made by Sigg. 

One of the things to be aware of with aluminum bottles is that aluminum is neurotoxic so most of the bottles made with it have an internal coating to prevent contact between the liquids and the aluminum.  Sigg bottles are coated with a water-based liner that is not affected by dents in the bottle, acidic beverages or carbonated drinks. 

The only problem with the metal bottles is that they cannot carry hot liquids as the container becomes too hot to hold.  Although they do have thermal insulated models which you can use if you need to carry hot liquids.  Alternatively, Nalgene HDPE claims to have a wide temperature tolerance so these are also a good alternative.

As for baby bottle alternatives, you can look at Born Free, Green to Grow, ThinkBaby on Nubius Organics which are all free from bisphenol A.

Update (29/11/08):  Dr Brown’s do have glass bottles and bottles that are free from bisphenol A as mentioned by Steve in the comments below.

For a more comprehensive list of baby and children’s bottles that are free from bisphenol A, please visit Safe Mama.

I’ve just been reviewing some of the discipline tools recommended by Baby Center and I’ve realised that perhaps I’m not doing so badly with Gavin after all.

For instance,

Tool: Right wrongs together
Age: 12 to 24 months

When Gavin makes a mess, like spilling water, he apologises for it.  He’ll tell me, “Mummy, sorry spilt water.”  When he’s able, he’ll try to wipe up the mess.  Then was another time when he was drawing with crayons and his hand slipped off the page and made a black mark on the floor.  I can’t remember the exact words he used but he alerted me to the marks on the floor and asked for a tissue.  I was intending to wipe it up myself but he grabbed the wet-wipe from my hand and started rubbing the marks off the floor on his own.

Tool: Emphasize the positive
Age: 12 months and up

I’ve been doing this ever since I realised Gavin responds well to stickers and other incentives.  It has gotten to the point where Gavin will remind me when he’s done a good job because he’ll say, “Sticker Mummy!  Baby did good job!”

Tool: Ask for your child’s help
Age: 12 months to 8 years

As my SIL said once - “when he helps, I take twice as long to do everything”.  Yet, in spite of this, I still ask Gavin to help out every so often and resist the urge to do it all myself because I’m impatient.  Even if it’s simply pushing a button on an appliance in the kitchen, I’ll ask him to “help”.  He’s generally very willing to help unless he is distracted by something more engrossing - like watching Thomas and Friends on the TV.

Tool: Manage anger
Age: 12 to 24 months

I’m afraid this is one where I’m not sure if I’m making much progress.  Or perhaps I am since Gavin is now more willing to sit in his carseat without too much fuss?

Tool: Talk toddler-ese
Age: 12 to 24 months

I use this on and off, although a lot less lately.  Perhaps it’s time to dust off this technique and start trying it again.

Tool: Listen to “no”
Age: 12 to 36 months

When your toddler says “no”, respect their choice.  For example,

Your toddler’s running around in a dirty diaper, but she refuses to stop and let you change it. “Start by asking if she wants her diaper changed, and if she says no, say okay and let it go for a while,” says Kvols. Wait five minutes and ask again, and if you get another no, wait again.

Usually by the third time you ask, discomfort will have set in and you’ll get a yes. And knowing that saying no carries some weight will stop your child from saying it automatically. “The more you respect their no, the less often they use it,” Kvols says.

I try this sometimes when trying to get Gavin into the shower.  As much as he loves water, he’s been a little more resistant to take a bath when called.  However, once in the bath, he refuses to get out. So what I normally do is ask him if he’s ready to come out.  If he says, “no”, I’ll respect it and wait a bit before asking him again.  Eventually he comes out on his own.

So perhaps I’m not really doing too badly after all?

For more discipline tools for older and younger children, see Baby Center.

I also seem to be a lot more teary lately.  The smallest things can set me off.  For instance, my FIL was watching Robbie Hood on Astro recently and I was sitting on the floor drawing with Gavin.  I didn’t dare look up at the TV or even pay attention to what was going on because I was afraid I would burst into tears.  It’s not even just one or two silent tears that brim at the corners of your eyes but the kind that are like the monsoon rains.  Or I’d listen to a particular tune that somehow tweaks a chord inside of me and I find myself on the verge of crying.

Since the hubby’s observation of my impatience with our son, I’ve been making a lot more effort over the past couple of days to be mindful of how I speak to Gavin.  Perhaps it’s time to dig out the old discipline books again to refresh my tired brain on useful ways to foster desirable behaviour and encourage cooperation. 

I think that’s it - I’m just tired.  Sometimes, I just need a break from my son.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love my son to bits.  I love cuddling up with him, playing with him and just spending time with him.  I’m really glad I am a SAHM (stay-at-home-Mum) and if I had to go back and do everything all over again, I would still choose to be a SAHM.  But sometimes, I find myself desperate to have just a couple of hours away from him just for me.

That’s why I stay up late - to get in time for myself.  But even these wee hours of the morning are often invaded by Gavin when he stirs for milk, or when his nose is blocked and he can’t breathe lying down, or when he just wants to be close to me.  And when I stay up late, there’s a price I pay when I don’t get enough sleep.  But if I don’t get this time to myself, I feel irritable and unfulfilled. 

When the hubby nags me about staying up and not getting enough sleep, I get angry because I feel that this is my time and my choice to do what I want with it - whether to stay up or to sleep.  If you don’t like the hours I keep, then do something to help me find time for myself when my son is awake, otherwise zip up and keep your comments to yourself - is what I think.

The common assumption a lot of people seem to make is that because I am a SAHM, I don’t need a break.  After all, what could be easier than being a SAHM, right?  (All SAHMs rise up and protest, please)  And what annoys me most is the assumption that because I am a SAHM, I’m not entitled to personal time.  I’m on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

My problem is that I’m a solitary person.  Before I had Gavin, I was the kind of person that needed that personal space and isolation time in order to recover from the crowd.  As my cousin so aptly put it - I am an introvert that has learned to be an extrovert.  My preference is to keep to myself but since life dictates the necessity of intermingling with others, I do so, but every so often, I need to come back to my turtle shell and hide for a while so I can recouperate.  Yes, it sounds strange but it’s true.  I’m sure others with similar personality types would agree.

In fact, before Gavin came into my life, I seriously wondered how I was going to manage with someone who would constantly be invading my personal space and demanding time I so reluctantly give out to others.  Now that he is here, I devote the bulk of my time to him because he is my son, but that doesn’t change any of my own personal needs.