"Mummy, Happy....Happy....Happy."

This is my girl's favourite phrase. She uses it in the following circumstances:

• When she's afraid, for eg. when I leave her in the bedroom to sleep on her own, even if baby brother is sleeping soundly beside her. I usually sleep with them but sometimes when I'm busy, I leave them on their own for a little while. Before I leave the room, she'd say "Mummy, happy....happy...happy." and insist that I say it "Happy....happy....happy." back to her. Then she'd be satisfied and go to bed or play on her own happily, fear gone for the moment. Sometimes when I come back to the room and she's still not asleep but hiding under the blanket she'd tell me that she was afraid and thats why she was hiding under the blanket. Poor little thing but she's learning important skills of consoling herself, I feel.
• When she knows that I'm angry or impatient with her. She'd go "Mummy, happy....happy...happy." then I'd snap back impatiently "Yah, yah, ok. ok. happy! happy! happy!" and she'd say "No, mummy. Haaappppy......haaaappppy....happpyyy." (she'd say it slowly to remind me not to be angry and insist that I repeat after her "haapppy...haapppy....haapppy" slowly in return. (That usually stops me in my track of being angry or impatient. Smart girl. Its like taking a deep breath and counting to 10) or she'd say "No, mummy. Say okay. One time only. Not. Ok. Ok. Ok!" and she usually isn't satisfied till I repeat after her "Okay" in a calm controlled voice preferably with a smile instead of snapping back impatiently OKAY!" or worse still "OKAY LAH!" to which she'd say "Not Okay LAH, mummy, just Okay."
• When she knows that she has done something wrong eg made little baby brother cry.

Now, thats something I should learn from my girl. Whenever I feel myself getting angry, stressed or afraid, I should stop, take a deep breath and say "Happy.....happy....happy."

What about my boy? What have I got to learn from him? Well, one thing which he always does to me when I'm reading, using the computer or watching tv is come up to me, grab my face in both his little hands and turn my face to face him so that I'm staring him in the face, then put his face very near mine, give me a big smile and start babbling and pointing away. It never fails to get my attention. Hahaha. Think I should try that one out on Mr MG one day. ;)