Egg-q-me, I'm looking for my mummy...

Now that Angel is a high-spirited, dynamic toddler who is always full of joie de vivre, whenever we hit the roads, it becomes my responsibility to let her have the freedom to run about but yet remain safe from aliens, attackers and abductors.

Although I pride myself for being able to multitask well, such as being able to separate fresh and rotten tomatoes while keeping an eye on her, able to pay for my groceries at the cashier while keeping an eye on her, able to have a hearty chat with a friend while keeping an eye on her, there's always the "What if".

Once, a friend of mine almost went berserk when she was at the supermarket and realised that her 2-year-old toddler had gone missing. Frenetically, she searched high and low all over but there was no sign of the missing child anywhere. Despite shrieking the kid's name at the top of her voice and hoping to get a response, still there was no sign. Just when the mum was about to have a mental breakdown, she saw her kid at the candy section, happily opening up all the sweet containers and chomping the bonbons one by one.

Another time, I was at McDonalds with another friend and her two kids, aged 4 and 2, were playing happily in our vicinity. Suddenly, we realised that we had more peace than usual and to our shock, realised that the kids were nowhere to be found. My friend went off her rocker and sprinted to the nearby shops to see if they were there. Alas, we could not even hear their voices anywhere. We were in a state of panice when all of a sudden, the two kids came running out from the elevator in McDonalds. Yes, they actually took the lift themselves, went down to Level 1, ran out and luckily came up again. OMG.

So, I had already concluded that kids are way smart nowadays. Sometimes too smart for their own good.

That makes me a little petrified that one day, my precious little girl would go missing and there is nothing I can do except to report to the police and stick a "Missing Child" poster everywhere. Thus, I decided that I should teach Angel how to try to look for mummy when she is lost. Even if there's only 0.01% chance that it will happen. You really never know.

First, I thought I would teach her to draw a sketch of Mummy.

Ok, that probably doesn't even look like me but at least it gives a clue that I have long hair, two eyes, one nose and one mouth. That said, I realised that it is just far-fetched thinking to even hope that Angel would be able to draw anything similar at the mere age of two.

Hence, I had to make my sketches simplified. And more simplified. And more simplified.

I even resorted to making myself bald for the sake of retaining my eyes, nose and mouth.

In spite of that, whenever I told Angel to "Can you draw mummy, please?", this was what I got.

Ok. No eyes, no nose, no mouth. Sometimes I wonder why I would still applause and say "Bravo!", giving her the illusion that she might be the next Picasso. You'll know why, when you become a mum.

So I moved to Plan B and have since trained her to be able to say my name in full. Yes, if you ask her now what is mummy's name, she can say "Wu Yun Shuang Summer" with an endearing high pitched tone at the word Summer. Hopefully, that makes it easier for the police to look for me if they find my missing child or for my name to be announced on the PA system when she gets lost in a shopping mall.

Next month, I'm going to train her to recite my phone number. So that if she can ask a stranger for help to call my cell phone next time.

If one day, you see a cute little girl wandering on the streets saying "Egg-q-me, can you call my mummy at 07057*****", that's my Angel.

P/S: Egg-q-me is her version of Excuse me and she says it at least ten times everyday. Like everytime I walk past the TV and block her, for a split second, from watching her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.