The Road to 40 Day 131/365: Small Steps

Over the past few blogs, I think I’ve talked about Vino’s place in our bed. But I think it’s more about how he’s growing into his own person.

He’s been asking about going home from school on his own, and he’s been getting his bag farther and farther away during morning dropoff. Last Sunday, he was feeling his outfit. And lately, he’s been talking with his friends on the tablet whenever he has time.

It feels like he’s taking small steps to his independence, and we’re getting a front row seat to it.

The day started early for me, as I didn’t have a lot of room for myself on bed.

But I needed to cook rice anyway, so it was all good. I had to get up to prepare stuff. After our morning routines, I dropped Vino off at school. During this time, I showed Vino our picture from the morning, asking him where he would sleep if he were in my position. He just laughed it off, because he also couldn’t find a spot.

After seeing him off, I went straight home because we had a cleaner coming over.

This was a bit of downtime for me, so I got to catch up on Running Man episodes. I’ve been so behind already, because I can’t play it in the background and I can’t just sit still while watching it. I’m down to about 10 back episodes.

Vino had football practice after school and we were going straight there. Since Che was heading home after work, I prepared bistek and tried to use the timer function on the rice cooker.

I picked up Vino and we went to our usual spot at the hawker for some char siew pau for him and an egg onion prata for me.

We took our time this time around, because the bus takes us to the place within 15 minutes. It makes no sense for us to come early as the guard won’t let us in before 5:45pm.

This time, we arrived around 5:50pm, just in time for him to change clothes and play a little bit with his friends.

I didn’t bring my basketball things because it rained. I know I’d just be shooting, but I didn’t want to play on a wet pavement. Instead, I brought my camping chair so I could watch the training.

I got to talk to the dads a bit to talk about life and parenting almost similar-minded kids. It’s always enlightening, like comparing notes with them on the quirks of our kids.

We got back home and ate dinner while Che talked to her sisters. As we were preparing to sleep, Vino went to his bed and got ready to sleep there. We asked if he was sure, and he said he was going to try.

It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep on his own. I guess he remembered the picture from the morning and was trying to be considerate, which I appreciate.

It’s been so long since Che and I were just us on the bed, and I feel like there was a bit of an adjustment on my part on just how I should position myself on the bed.

On the other hand, Che fell asleep pretty quick. I’d attribute it to my reliable arm that Vino falls asleep on, but I think she was also just really tired.

I’m not sure how long this would last, but at least for this night, Vino is starting to show confidence in doing things by himself.

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