ALREADY!!! She is a TODDLER, no longer a BABY??? When did that happen? Wasn’t it just yesterday that she was inside my belly? I really should have done a 1.5 year old update on T2 but who cares, a 19 month update is as good as an 18 month update, so if you think an update of my baby’s development milestones will bore you, move on……..because I need to do this.

1st August 2009 (19 months ago), T2 was summoned out of Mommy to meet her sister, T1. It is interesting to note when T1’s BOY phase started. Here, she still has long hair with flowers and ribbons, and wearing PINK! So it must have been some time in 2010 that she started her BOY phase……see? I love this blog. It gives me information.

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The nostalgia of my last baby (and yes, T2 really is my last. There will be no accidents) always brings me to the tunes of Sunrise, Sunset from Fiddler on The Roof……I’m not sure why, but this might give you a hint.

Is this the little girl I carried? Is this the little girl at play? I don’t remember growing older…..When did she? When did she grow to be a beauty? When did she grow to be so tall? Wasn’t it yesterday when she was small?

Sunrise, sunset……….
Sunrise, sunset………..
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze

Sunrise, sunset……..
Sunrise, sunset…….
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears

On her very birth day, T2 was already showing her middle finger. Wait. Wasn’t she doing that already in-utero? I remember very clearly that we caught her middle finger showing in an ultrasound scan photo…..and I’ve just spent the last ONE HOUR looking through old photos and cannot find it. Grrr…..

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And look at my baby now…..*blink* She’s 19 months old. She really is my little cutie and I am savouring every second of my time with her…….

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*blink* She just started school! (Only once a week for an hour for now) This was her first day at school and she was SO EXCITED!!! She even carried her white Calvin Klein bag with 2 balls inside and donned her Osh Kosh leggings and shoes. Glamour on her first day, who was she trying to impress?!

On her left hand (if you look closely enough) is her breakfast of a peanut butter sandwich – just like her sister, always late and has to finish up her breakfast on the go……T2 has such a distinct personality that truly defines her as T2.

Every day, when we leave the house, she’d run to the lift when I’d yell STOP. And she’d stop and wait for me to lock up the doors. Then as soon as she sees that my locking is done, she runs to the lift again for which I give another instruction to STAND BEHIND THE LINE. And she takes a step back. She knows where the line is. Later, she trots along the parking lot to the car, knowing every step, hole and hill, where she obediently gets strapped in. She’s now learning how to belt herself up.

Every day, she commands the type of music that we play in the car depending on her mood. She mostly likes the fast beats of my 80s CD, like Geri Halliwell’s Look At Me (my wedding walk-in song) and Duran Duran’s Rio. Whenever Elton John comes in with his slow numbers, the protesting begins. With the telly, she’s also moody, liking that big, gay purple dinosaur and the Teletubbies. I cannot stand both. So we trade. Barney means no boob and vice versa.

T2 loves being my little helper (WHICH I LOVE since I’m such a lazy ass) and will bring me my slippers, my inhalers, my shirt (which I’ve left on the couch or the bed), my hair clip, my phone, my pen, her diaper (very important), some wet wipes (she calls wet wipes, WAYWAY), her water bottle (she calls water WORWOR), her plate, throwing dirty diapers into the trash, etc etc etc…..she takes all these instructions VERY WELL whenever I ask her to do me a favour.

She can feed herself with a spoon and can drink off a cup but I won’t be risking anything BUT water in those cups! Her favourite drink of all time is the boxed chocolate milk because she won’t drink any other milk in any form except BOOB MILK  🙁

Her understanding of words is quite extensive as she reads a lot (she knows many of her body parts and animals, and their sounds, and household objects etc) but her speech is still minimal. They say that siblings of very chatty children talk later but when they do start, they’re even worse than their chatty sibling. Boy, have I got something coming…..

She tells me every time she has done a pee or a poo and insists I change her diaper. She is really so ready to be toilet trained but unfortunately, I am not. I just don’t see myself rushing her to the toilet every so often. The lazy Mom strikes again!

She knows how to wash her hair and clean her body and hands with soap (it’s darn cute, she rubs water on the soap, then rubs her hands together to form bubbles and then rubs them on her tummy) and loves repeating this action until I tear her away from it. You can only get so clean…..

T2 loves dancing, singing and imitating……like a little parrot. And she’s a thinker. She’d watch and observe and think…..

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Every day, we set off to pick T1 up from school where we park quite a distance away, walk across the hot football field and then wait for the school bell to ring. As always, T2 will be ever so busy, organising her next appointment with the toy manufacturers (she does not like toys currently and thinks they should be improved) and makes random calls to random people, sometimes located abroad. She also sends random text messages, sometimes 20 at a go. You know when you’ve been hit!

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Once she’s done with her appointments or as soon as the school bell rings and she sees some activity down the school bridge (whichever comes sooner), she waits excitedly for her sister’s arrival at the gate. Her delight when she sees her sister and waves frantically like a mad lunatic is for me, the most wonderful sight. It makes me feel like I’ve done something right. Or maybe I’m just damn boring that she can’t wait to play with her sister!

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For her sister is her best friend in the world and they laugh along like Spongebob and Patrick Star……

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And love like Mickey Mouse and Pluto despite the fights. I’m not sure who’s Mickey and who’s Pluto though I think they must take turns.

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My T2, she’s born vain and so unlike her sister. She carries her own little bag out every time we leave the house. It is so cute. And she has a shit load of little bags!!! Here, she gives her fake Paris Hilton smile……

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She has conquered the family and promoted herself as the BIG BOSS. It is always her way or the high way that involves the loudest and shrillest of screams. Do you know how many of my Waterford crystals have exploded? It just isn’t worth it, not giving in to her. It’s much easier to give in first, then try talking your way around her.

She even took over the Hubs’ Herman Miller Aeron chair insisting that she needed it for work. She’s headed for the big corporate world, this one. So serious counting her ang pow investments…….

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And she loves following after all the big kids…….whether or not she is welcome. Here, they are lying down on a restaurant floor (Passage to India) – can you believe it? I had to close my eyes so hard to allow this to happen, shutting out images of rats, cockroaches, dog shit soled shoes and just imagine what else smeared along the fibers of the flooring. And there goes my T2 touching the floor and then putting it into her mouth – ARGHHH!!!!!

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She is very agile despite her tiny frame (she is barely 8kg) and can climb a slide all by herself, thanks to her school teacher! I never would have allowed her to do it by herself but the teacher let her and she did it! Wow! It goes to show how much we parents hold our own kids back……

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And just the other day, she climbed an even bigger slide (about 6 feet high!) and whaddya know, she was brave enough to descend it herself. It was one of those tube slides where I could not hold her whilst she zoomed down so she had to go it on her own. My T1 would never have done that, being the more cautious of the two. It’s interesting how they are both so different yet my love for them both overspills in abundance.

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And before she can even balance on her own two little feet, she’s already raring to go on a bicycle! I can do it, Mama!

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So we humoured her and brought her to the bicycle shop to scout around…….she liked this bike but it was 800 dollars!!! Just you go practise your walking first, little one…….

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T2, my precious baby (oops, toddler). You have really completed our little humble family and life is so good with you. Now will you please slow down!!!!

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Who is Mamapumpkin?
Mamapumpkin is a former Design Architect turned Multi-Million Dollar Digital Entrepreneur. She sets out to prove to all that you can have anything and everything that you want; if you have that fire of desire burning within and the drive to work hard. Even better with much love.

Mamapumpkin has not only grown corporate businesses successfully in the past and doubled her salary 5 times over 5 organisations but has grown THREE BUSINESSES to 7 FIGURES within an 8 year period. She now shows others EXACTLY HOW after retiring her own husband from employment. He is now the official dog walker, family driver, chef and THE BEST FATHER to their two girls and THE BEST HUSBAND to the woman who CHOSE HIM!

Mamapumpkin is the girl who has nothing but fights for everything including YOU. She is idealistic in her desire to put unbelievable amounts of money and extrardinary happiness into the lives of good people so we can change the world together believing in happiness for ALL. She strives to impact lives authentically wanting to reduce poverty cycles and enable quality education for all and always supports the voiceless. She believes we can all have a life of our own desires to enable real contribution into the world. But first, one needs to understand what this all means.

A beautiful life without limits.

If you wish to learn how to propel your life forward guaranteed, be brave to take action. Mamapumpkin's purpose is to build people. Her gift is to help them UNCOVER their HIDDEN GIFTS. She operates fairly and always leaves an impression. You either love her or not and she is alright either way.

She is a living testimony that women really can have a lot. Being financially and time free has enabled her to travel the world anytime, anywhere, doing anything with anyone, as she spends most of her days with her children, having fun, supporting others wherever she can. Also having fun.