My Parentology Lab

Recently the terrible 2 whines a lot, especially after I stop breastfeeding him. Now he is pestering me to let him play the jigsaw puzzles(I kept in a box right on top the bookshelf), with his puppy face and 2 rows of tears and mucus running from his nostrils... am I giving in?!! Of course NOT! I know he will stop this hell noisy bugging after I ignore him for a while... right now(realising his trick or perhaps sandiwara(drama) didn't work on me, he is now messing upconcentrating on the flags I gave him).

These few days he shows some improvement at night, in which he no longer wet the hammock or mattress. Most important when I woke him up for pee wee, he no longer make a fuss like before! Hurray!

His speech is developing well(indeed very well), still gibberish but the family members are now able to catch up with what he said. At the age of 2, he is able to talk in complete sentence with proper grammar(most of the time). He sang too, quite a number of songs... sluggishly but the tune and melody are there! Kudos my child!

His attention span for books has improved too, now he is able to listen to a whole story book of 32 pages without distracted... so far. He is quite good at filling up the blank for his favourite story book too, for instance, Chugga Chugga Choo Choo, Upsy Down Town and other Monster story.

Instead of taking commands, X(19 months old) actually likes to instruct and give orders!

Yesterday morning X patted his diaper, looked at me while bugging me, "Mama, change!" pointing at his diaper, he repeated the same sentences until I grabbed a napkin and changed his soiled diaper! Just now in the Kopitiam, when I brought him to have lunch he kept pointing at the pau steamer and pestered me to buy a pau for him. Since I didn't buy any pau for them for quite some time, I just got him one char siew pao. Without guidance, he peeled the paper off the pau and slowly munching and nibbling on the filling, when it's time to fetch his sister, I found he finished the char siew(braised pork) filling and left some of skin untouched(sigh~! What a picky eater)!

This morning, he kept bugging me to give him spirulina tablet, he insisted to wear shirts with bear or ducks printed on it, he handed me a box and ask me, " Mama, open!"... well, congratulation to him for knowing what he wants but frankly, it's kind of bothersome too... *bitter smile!

At 19 months old, he is learning to count from 1- 10. When we say 1, he will recite 2; if we said 3, he will reply 4; the numbers go on till number 10(although the number 6,7 and 8 sound sluggish)!

J appeared(noted it was past tense) to be an apprehensive girl who didn't dare to try anything new and unfamiliar. During our Genting trip these 2 days, she amazed us as she willing to take the long curvy slide down to the wading pool in Rain Forest Splash World, indoor Theme Park of Genting Highland.

It was me who prompted her to take the slide. Initially she was reluctant to comply, and I had to drag her up the staircase that led to the pool. But after her 1st attempt, she enjoyed it so much and even went up the staircase and slide down all on her own. It might not be something to shout about for other parents, but being able to overcome her scaredy-self is definitely a HUGE achievement for either her or me and TK!

Moreover after she was encouraged by TK, she even took the risk adventurous enough to dash in and out the water falling mushroom(which she would never do it if it was her old self). We are proud of you, our lovely girl... really! Another incident that show some changes on her was, when I prompted her to try on hand waxing(after a few pestering) she agreed to give it a try. However she didn't get her hand wax done since she can't take heat of hand waxing procedure, and failed to maintain a certain hand posture before her hand wax was sculptured.

Nevertheless it's a very valuable attempt, I really feel grateful that she has finally start to overcome her fear of trying newbies! Congratulation to you my dearest sweet heart!

God gracious, now I just realize how I have slacking in updating my boy's milestone and development! Let's start with something general...

Height: Not available since I forgot to measure!
Weight: Gosh~! Last month during checkup he was 9.2KG!

Physically wise he is learning to hop like her jie jie, he bent his knee to spring from the ground and of course he didn't really get to jump since it still way beyond his ability. He can really dance by twitching, turning and spinning his body(his balancing has obviously improved tremendously). He walked up and down the staircase without holding the railing(sweats), and fell thrice from the staircase with a big thud! He has got 10 teeth, and pretty keen to give everyone a nasty bite!

Verbally... gosh~! I have to admit for boys at his age, he really can talk! He uttered with ease most monosyllabic(like tea, cat, bird, hat, hair, eat, milk, tree etc) and pronounced sluggishly multisyllabic words (for instance bamboo, Mc Donald, upstair, tv etc), but since he is good with baby signs, he has no problem to convey what he wants to us(especially me)!
He sings and hums songs too, like "pass the parcel" as "Ahhh the Di Di"(his own version but apparently the tune still there), and very keen on imitate what we said or taught him. He likes to make animal sounds like horsey(neh~! Shaking head to and fro), dog( woof with sign), cat(miao~! with sign), cow(moo~!) and etc.

Mental development wise, he is definitely a fast learner(TK and I agreed he learnt even faster than J) and very alert('Sing muk') too! He understands 95%(if not 99%) of what we said. A very handy boy(for now) and willing to pick up and throw rubbish into the dustbin, put his soiled nappy or pants into the laundry basket, place bowl or plate into the sink after used and place the books back after read to him. Sometimes he will help his Jie Jie to complete the chores that she reluctant to do too, like pick up toys and junks.

Diet... sigh~! He is getting picky on food, and always prefer eating meats that he hardly chew and swallow(normally he will munch until dried the juice before he spits out the debris). He eats potatoes, broccoli, carrot and green leafy vege's stem. Pathetically he likes tidbits and junk food like his Jie Jie does, although he normally nibbled a bit and passed it to me later. Still very rely on breastmilk, which I'm trying to weaned off the night feed so that he can have a more peaceful sleep(off late I found he woke up at least twice at night for nen nen). Aside from what he eat, he is quite a neat eater too. He will pick up the debris or crumbs that dropped, and put it into the plate or bowl that hold the particular food.

Potty train is progressing well(probably). I found there's privileged of having an elder siblings, which he urged himself to pee and poop like his jie jie does! Whenever J requested for loo, he wanted it badly too(sort of kiasu)! He'll hold his undies and tell us he wants to pee or poop. He used to inform us after he did his business, but now he can even tell us or bring us a potty before he pee or poop(most of the time, even if he was on night diaper).

Special skills... I would say he is now learning to count, I had make it a practice to count the steps when we walked downstairs(he loved it). Now when I say 'One', he would sometimes continue 'two'( he is good at reciting one, two, four, six, nine and ten). His vocabulary and general knowledge(animals kingdom is his best subject)has widely expanded compared the precious month, he will point out most objects or living being from the pictures we showed correctly. Unlike J, he enjoyed being questioned and will be proud to answer, which he really makes me proud of! He loves books(of his category) and will nonchalantly bubbled like he was telling a story or knows how to read(full of expression and action).

Brotherly relation with J, well... basically he will do whatever J does and hysterically excitedly play with her! A very jealousy boy(compared to the precious months), he will push J away if he found she clung to me or worse he'll throw something on J and me if J refused to move away(shake head)! Whenever I wanted to read to J, he will come forward with another book(his preference), then grabbed J's book and close it or threw it away before he sat on my laps and begged me to read for him. Of course I won't give in and he ended up whining and resulted none of J nor him got to listen to stories before bed!!!

It's never been easy to coach my 3 years old to read nor write, as she is a highly egoistic child! Despite we read to her a lot and she enjoyed listening to the books we recited and explained, she can't read... not even a single word. However she is gifted with incredible memory, to be precise she has amazingly good selective memory. She can memorized the most difficult(for me and papa)books' titles, storyline and content, and even chanting a Buddhist mantra that would take an adult ages to memorize it!

I have tried with flashing word cards( when she was much younger), phonics, and even words game that sort of like playing scrambles, yet still she has problem to identity which direction should a word start!! For instance, 'DOG'... she will arrange it as ' GOD' (slapped forehead)!

This post is actually to record an incident that happened this Sunday, when we were in Popular IOI mall. She took a paper back book and pestered me to buy for her, I looked at the price, it's RM9.90?!!(for such a thin paper back book) I didn't want to upset her with a stern 'No', thus I tried to reject her with a more indirect trick. I told her if she got to read the title of the book, then I'll buy her that book(of course in my mind I actually thought she can't never get it right) else she has to put it back from where she got it from!


To my surprise, She pointed at the title words by words and pronounced, "Dora's Picnic!" She got it all right, I know she might have tricked me with her intelligent as the front page showed a picture of Dora was having a picnic, but nevertheless it's a good reading attempt! Well done my lovely girl!

Today J was down with a horrible cough, instead of sending her to Montessori, I brought her to playgrounds. Morning and evening, I brought her to our neighbourhood playground while in the afternoon I brought both J and X to Giant's Playland.

The incident happened in the evening, when X engrossed into picking up dried leaves and junks on the field. There was once he picked up a tiny winy circular dried leaf and intended to put it into his mouth, I hurriedly warned him, " Your hands are dirty, don't put it into your mouth!!!" he looked up and stared at me, then he wobbly walked to a nearest swing. He placed the dried leaf on the seat of the swing then lowered his body... Alas~!! He was trying to bite the leaf into his mouth without using his hand!!! OMG! I shouted at him and he got statled before he managed to get the tiny winy piece of leaf into his mouth...

At one point, I think he is not only able to comprehend what I said but also have a little intelligent to get what he wants... in another way!