5 Lessons I Learnt When I Holi-Date My 2 Year Old
Since we became parents, we knew that our children is for us to steward and not hoard over. We constantly find ourselves finding ways of engaging with our kids, grow their potential and build our relationships — yes, even when they’re at their youngest age. One of our parenting philosophy is to educate them through experiences, rather than just the classroom/media type of education. (I’ll probably talk about this in another post)
So, this year, knowing that E will turn two, we decided to plan a different type of holiday.
One parent — one child — two separate destinations. Each of us would take one child for the same period of time with the closest flight times to each other as possible. Another criteria is that it should be a destination we have never been so to make the adventure new and exciting for us too.
Deb took S (our 5 year old) to Taiwan and I took E to Hong Kong for 6 days. (Take a wild guess who got the most pre trip advice from our family and close friends who knew of our trip!)
Here are five lessons I learnt when I took my boundless-of-energy 2 year old to Hong Kong.
Lesson #1: It all begins with a purpose
I’ve never quite really purposely set a purpose for our travels. It’s always the general ones — “learn about the culture”, “bond with family”, “see a particular something”. But never quite like this trip. As we anticipated for the trip, the more I became purposeful. “For the next 6 days” — I told myself, “it will be all about bonding and growing my relationship with my daughter”. I navigated my plans surrounding this purpose, which focused on building our relationship. After the trip, I realised this:
that when purpose is set, expectations will follow suit — and thus you are less set for disappointments.
and this follows by my
Lesson #2: It’s not all about me
It humbles me when I see E getting so excited with small things. On the first day at Kowloon Park, all she wanted to do was to pick leaves and feed the birds. She even wanted to bring leaves back to our room so that she can show her brother during our video call. My initial reaction was to rush her to finish her thing but I had to stop myself as I remembered my intention of this trip. So we played along and I helped her with her ‘collection’. Our pace became slower, but we saw more and I spent those moments explaining to her about tortoises, cockatoo, hornbills and ducks.
Lesson #3: Travel is about learning (and teaching)
For starters, this is a no brainer because everyone knows this and I know this. However, this trip taught me to teach, and do it intentionally. I was constantly on the lookout to teach her new things in our new environment. I taught her how the red panda sleeps, what does going up and down mean, and how delicious steam milk can be, apart from her bottled milk.
It was also intentional that I got us to go on as many modes of transport — the rail, bus, cable car, MTR and on our two feet. We also saw fishermen trading on boats at Sai Kung. These were great opportunities for me to explain to her various intricacies of transportation, from how to queue up to the ticketing system. It was a delight to see her using the pay machine; though a simple thing, it gives my two year old such happiness.
I am also now better at tying my girl’s hair!
Lesson #4: Adapting can also mean compromising
I can be a fast pace and get-it-done type of a person but I knew from the get go that this style cannot be applied during this trip. I do not need to just adapt, but also to compromise as I was the sole caretaker of E. There was no way I can visit sites I am able to on a solo or couple travel, so the key was to compromise.
On the times she was her most energetic, we would go to places more conducive or more attractive to her — like the Ngong Ping cable car ride and the aquarium at Ocean Park. E usually cuddles up to sleep in my carrying sac in the afternoon, so that’s where I’ll go explore places like Apliu Street Flea Market, Sham Sui Po or PMQ. I’ll take buses and train and walk to my liking… until she wakes up!
I believe that this would inculcate in our children to also learn to be adaptable to changing environment and flexible in their approaches. (life skills #ftw!)
Lesson #5 : My wife is the unsung hero!
Deb does so many behind the scenes work for our children and home and though I already know it, but it is nothing like living it as the sole caretaker of E for 6 days. More credit should be given to mums and wives for the role they play in parenting and ensuring the home is organised. I truly have a gem of a wife!
We told ourselves that if this trip works out well, we would repeat it every 2 years and we would swap kids… so watch this space if it’ll happen again :) By the time they turn 16, E would have gone on 8 new places for holi-dates and each of us would have 4 different opportunties to have bonded with her through a different lens and perspective!… and that’s me being an idealist!
