Diary - Diaper Change, Taking Medicine and Giving me a Kiss

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 15:50:00 +0000

August 27th, 2012

Somedays, when you are all charged up, you have so much patience you’re like Buddha! It is at these times that you’ll see the miracles of RIE!

Today, the kids left with mom early in the morning so I had a bit of time for myself, then I went to a meeting with an angel investor friend of mine. It just so happens that he has a 10 months old daughter so he’s new to this baby thing as well, so we had a long, interesting talk about parenting! As you may know, I’m very passionate about raising creative thinkers who can think on their feet, and that if I can help other parents learn about RIE and the Reggio Emilia Approach, it has the potential to create such a big social change that will really disrupt the broken system that enslaves us today. However, I’m not very good at monetizing the work that I do! This is where my friend really helped out today, he gave me a few great ideas that kinda clicked in my head, so hopefully, I’ll be able to implement something that will enable me to sustain myself while continuing to create social change via 100village.co

Anyway, the main story starts at 5 pm when my son L came back home. I was invigorated by the talks with my friend earlier so I was in a good place mentally. Meanwhile L didn’t get enough of his afternoon nap so he was a little cranky. He played with the trains, I sat by him and watched him play, then I smelled something funky so I asked if I could check his diaper, sure enough, he pooped, so I said “Oh, you pooped, can I change your diaper? (No) Do you want to change it now? Or do you want to wait and change 3 minutes later?” He said “3 miniits”. So I went and set my timer and showed him “OK, we’ll go change in 3 minutes.” When the alarm went off, of course, he still wouldn’t go. He was tired and laying there on his side, pushing the train back and forth. I calmly lay in front of him and just said “You said we can go change you diaper after 3 minutes. It’s ok, I can wait here with you, but you know you have a full diaper, and you’ll feel much better if we change it.” After may be another 3 minutes of my nagging, finally when I ask if he was ready, he said “Ready”, and we walked to the bathroom together. He was most cooperative throughout the whole thing! This was soooo much better than forcing him to “hurry up and go the the bathroom”, picking him up and forcefully bring him there, and then fight with him to clean his behind… (not gonna describe what could happen next, I’m sure you can guess! :)

A slight scare took place when I played “Pom Pom” with him. Pom Pom was this panda character that got sent flying from a see-saw in one of those Disney World Family videos. Basically, I repeat the lines from that scene and throw L onto the bed. It’s a little rough play that he likes. This time, I threw him face down and he landed with his hand a little bit twisted. He laughed as usual, but he just stayed there in that position, and slowly, he turned around and said “Hurt”. I already knew something went bad, I said “Oh no, where does it hurt?” and he pointed to his arm. I hold his arm and carefully pressed and checked for anything broken. Luckily, he didn’t seem to be in pain anymore. I kept him immobiled in my arms for a bit longer just to make sure, and I said “I’m sorry I hurt you.” while hugging him. All was well 2 minutes later.

8:30 pm, L was so tired he didn’t protest when I said let’s pick our books and go to bed. We were laying on the bed, exploring Thomas the train engine and Danny & the dinosaur when I suddenly remembered he hadn’t taken his medicines yet. I opened the door to ask my wife and we decided that since he was so tired, he would probably be extra difficult if we tried to feed him his medicine now! And since his cough was almost all gone, we agreed to just skip it. Well, L decided he wants to go out! So, I told him “If you go out, you’ll have to take the medicine! Are you sure?!” He nodded. I made it extra clear by repeating the medicine consequence again, then I said OK and opened the door. He went to play with his train while I prepared the medicines. When it’s ready, I set them on his table and called him over. To my surprise, he came over by himself, and once again, extremely cooperative! I couldn’t believe what a difference my being patient and setting expectations up front had made! The last few days, my wife had to basically force the medicine down his throat, with L spitting half of it back out! At that point, even if I butt in it was too late.

Surprise #2, after the calmest medicine taking experience ever, we got back to bed and I picked up the dinosaur book again. L slowly made his way up, then he came over to me and gave me a cheek-to-cheek, which is his version of a kiss. Aww… it was so sweet! I said “Thank You” and gave him a big hug.

I think as we grow older, it gets harder to express our affections to our parents / children. This is especially true for Asians. I would love to be this affectionate with my own parents but I’ve yet to be able to give them a big hug like this! Here’s where Reggio Emilia Approach’s documentation really shines! I hope that in 20, 30, 40 years, my son will be able to pick up this diary and see how much we love him! (L, please feel free to come give your daddy and mommy a hug whenever you read this!) This is also why I want to build and share this tool with other parents, because I want everyone to be able to treasure their love between parents and children.

100village on Nick Wang

Diary - Diaper Change, Taking Medicine and Giving me a Kiss