I was bringing Elric to the nearby Koufu food court and decided to let Elric walk on his own. Alphonse usually allows him to do so as it's only about 10 minute away from home.
I was very surprised that Elric seemed to recognised the way so I decided to shoot him as he walked in front of me. True enough! He led me ALL THE WAY from home to the food court and back home!
Here's a short snipplet of it! :D
I have always wondered how the Japanese could allow their 3-4 years old head to provision shops by themselves! Now I understand that kids are really capable of recognising their way from young!
The first question I would ask whenever my mum bought grapes was, "Are they seedless?" I am sure I am not the only culprit! Right??? Don't you hate it when you eat and bite into the seeds?
I became more diligent when I got married. I don't buy grapes often, but I peel and remove the seeds for my husband if I do. That doesn't mean that I enjoy doing it. It's an act of Love! (Muahahaha...)
You can imagine what was going through my mind when my mum-in-law asked me to peel the grapes for Elric to eat. (Sianz) But I was so amused when I found out how easy it is to peel these grapes!
These are the Korean Hwa Seong grapes which my mum-in-law bought for Elric. They are super sweet. Similar to the sweet of grape-flavoured gummy bears. NO KIDDING!
And I bet my mum-in-law doesn't know how to peel these grapes cause she peeled and cut them into half to feed to Elric.
So in case you don't believe what I am saying, I recorded myself removing the skin and seeds from 4 of the grapes. I was slow only because I was using only one hand. :D
On and off I have been teaching Elric to feed himself. I can tell he is eager to do so. There were times he would reject food which I placed at his mouth and insisted on putting them into his mouth by himself.
However, the lazy mummy and daddy would fall back to feeding him because the process to coaching can be tedious. Imagine the kind of mess the child can create after each meal? You will have to clean him, his clothes, the table and even the floor. It is always seem simplier to feed him and get the meal time over and done with. :/
Now that Elric is 19 months old and has, I believe, very good motor skills for his age, I do not want to steal from him this joy of learning a new skill.
So this afternoon, I was all prepared for Elric to make a mess with his food. @__@
I thought I would close two eyes and do the cleaning up that would follow. To my surprise, Elric did fantastically well!
What's more delighting was to see the pride on his face telling me that, "See? Mummy I can do it!"
I'm sorry Elric! Mummy have belittled your capability!! You did an excellent job! :D
Here's a video proof! NVNT*!
Growing with my child
As I watched my son eat, it reminded me two things:
1. We need to give our children the chance to fail in order for them to succeed. In fact, even if it have been a messy meal, so long as he has achieved the objectives, he succeeded. He will surely get better at it.
2. As adults, we need to put down our pride and be willing to fail in order to continue learning new things. The fear of failure prevents learning. Only with humility will we truly get to grow continuously.
Didn't they say? 失败乃是成功之母。。。 (failure is the mother of success.)
aiyoooh... my son is Successful and I'm a Failure.
