Shouting, buses

One day a few months back, I realised I was a little more stressed out and was raising my voice very often at Marcus and I was upset and not proud of it. That was the beginning of the difficult period of him not wanting to cooperate with me on *anything*, especially during the morning routine of changing out of pajamas, wash face, brush teeth, nappy change etc.. and it was also such a struggle getting ready to go out. So I found myself losing my cool so quickly and easily and shouted at him. Usually I feel guilty immediately and very often I would apologise immediately after for shouting, but I felt it wasn't enough and had to constantly remind myself that he was only 2.5 yo. One afternoon i cuddled him and explained to him that it wasn't nice of mummy to shout at Marcus, even when I am very angry or upset with his behaviour. And I suggested to him to say to me in future 'mama, don't shout' if I were to do it again. He nodded as if he understood. I was doubtful. Few days later, I only slightly raised my voice at him in desperation to get him to put on a nappy and to my surprise he said 'mama, don't shout at marcus'. I was stunned, embarrassed and very proud of him. I apologised, explained it wasn't nice to shout, but I was getting impatient blah blah... and he readily came forward to put on his nappy. So it continued for a few months like this, though there were times when I wasn't even upset and wasn't shouting or talking loudly at all and he would just suddenly say 'mama don't shout' at me, which amuses and also annoys me. He hasn't said it for about 2 months and this week, he is back to reminding me AND his papa not to shout. Haha! Yesterday he was playing with the maid and he raised his voice as he got too excited. Immediately he paused, lowered his head and said in a small voice 'sorry auntie, I should not shout (with) you' (he meant 'shout at you'). I was so proud of him, praised him for saying that and couldn't stop laughing myself.


Buses
Marcus has been especially fond of buses the past 2 months and it has become his favourite topic in everything he does. He made up songs about buses, either composing his own tunes and adding lyrics about buses or changing the lyrics of tunes he already knows and adding words of 'bus' everywhere in the song.. like Twinkle twinkle little bus... He uses playdoh to make buses or asked the adults to do so for him, he draws buses everyday, paints buses, colours in pictures of buses, uses Lego bricks to make buses, plays with all his toy buses, googles on laptop to find pictures of buses, tells us stories of buses and where it goes and what incidents happen to these buses like the buses crash or buses are upside down or buses hit the kerb and he even arrange geometrical shapes (from a box of games) to form single and double decker and bendy buses, complete with wheels.