I thought as Esrene grows bigger it would be easier for me to take care of her, but the reality proved me wrong!!! She is very mobile now, can crawl to the places she wants in a split second, and pull herself up even under the table, which makes it really hard for me as our place is an open plan. Kitchen, living, dining all in one. She can crawl to everywhere easily and of course happily for her. We put the safety around the kitchen to stop her from coming in, but it is just impossible to put the gate everywhere.
That means I cannot leave her on her play mat for long while I do my cooking or work. So we have to teach her boundary by firmly tell her “NO” and spank her hands when she goes to those places that are not allowed to. And this happens everyday!! We have to repeat the “NO” to her every few minutes!!! She will remember for one or two days, then we go back to “prohibited” places or touch the things she is not allowed to again! Maybe that’s the way God trains us patience. Good thing is she starts to listen. When she hears the “No”, a lot of time she will stop and change direction.
The greatest challenge we have is to put her on her potty. As you know we potty trained her since she was 3 months old. She was doing very well since then and whenever we put her on the potty she will do her “job”. But the good time no longer exist since one month ago. She refused to sit on the potty!!! She will struggle, cry and scream her head off. We have to give her some toys to play to keep her on her potty. Yet the chances of her poo in her potty is just 50%. Sometimes after half an hour on the potty, she get bored with her toys, we get tired with the “emm-emm” singing, there’s still no poo. Never mind. The most frustrated part is after we put on the clean nappy on her, she will poo!!! We think she is playing up. Poo poo time has been very stressful time for all of us. There’s time we have to change 7 nappies per day coz she will poo in her nappy every 1 or 2 hours!! No, she did not have diarrhoea and no constipation as well. We finished one bag of nappy within one week, run out of baby wipes and nappy bags as well!!! We tried to sweet talk to her hoping that she will cooperate & poo in her potty, FAIL. We tried to give her a break for one week, then resume the potty training, FAIL. We also tried to spank her bottom when she poo in her nappies, also FAIL!! The expert mommies on potty training, can you give us some precious advice?
Did I mention that she is one strong will child? If she can’t get what she wants, she will scream her head off and cry. She can scream crying non stop for half an hour and will only keep quiet when we give in. Most of the time, we won’t and she will eventually fall asleep (cause too tired) :) Imagine a strong will child that refuse to poo + strong will mom that insist her poo poo in the potty? The result is “world war 3”!!! It drives me crazy!!!! We have to read a lot of books on how to discipline a strong will child and of course a lot of prayer to ask God for wisdom to raise her up to be the obedient one. Or maybe I should change instead? mmm….
Now Esrene is getting very rough and tough. Good and bad. Good thing is she rarely cry when she fall down and hit herself. She will get up by herself and continue to play. Bad thing is she is too rough when play with her little friends. She ever tried to climb on top of her little friend who is 9 months older than her!! She loves to grape away the toys from other kids and most of the time she will make the kids cried!! When their cry, she will shout at them, as if she is trying to tell them to keep quiet. She sounds like a big bully!!!
We are shocked with her behaviour and have to pray for her everyday that God will give her the spirit of gentleness.
Sometimes we really miss the time when she was just a little baby, so easy to handle, will listen to what we want her to do and doesn’t demand her own will. Maybe when she grow much bigger to a teenager I will miss her toddler time now. Now then I understand why my mum told me that I was much adorable and lovely when I was young!! We gave our parents hard time, now it is our children’s turn to give us hard time, so the cycle just goes on. This is how we learn to appreciate our parents more as well!! There’s a say that “when we start understand our parents is when we become the parents ourselves”, how true!! 
Overall, Esrene is still a blessing to us. Every stage has its own challenge, and every stage it makes all of us grow even more. We just pray that we will have the wisdom to rise Esrene up to be the God fearing woman that will shine for Him in future.
Daddy helped me by pushing the float around the pool and very soon I start to paddle with the float around the pool! Now I remember what is swimming!!!! I love it!!!
The desserts bar
Typical German beer for Pak Pak & Yea Yea
Before we head home, I didn’t forget to take a nice German style photo with Yea Yea & Da Da.
and of course a family photo with mummy & daddy.
I enjoyed my afternoon SO MUCH!!! 
