2y9m - An update on our cheeky monkey

You've grown so much and are so talkative now! Your vocabulary has improved a lot. Daddy and I are constantly surprised at the things you say. You're a little monkey with a strong and cheeky personality.

One day, you decided to make this little piggy face. The more we laughed, the more you made the face! You only did it for one day and then haven't done it since! Lucky I have photographic evidence.

You're still crazy about all things Cars. In fact, you insist on wearing a Cars t-shirt every day. I've bought so new Cars t-shirts in the last couple weeks as we can't keep up with the laundry. Your favourite train is still Gordon. In fact, we pack a "train bag" every time we go out and you always put a Gordon train in there.


Development:
- Counting to 100...and beyond! At night, we turn on a turtle light that beams the moon and stars on the ceiling. It's a routine that you want to count all the stars before you go to sleep. So each night, we count up to 100, though when you really don't want to sleep, you'll count 101, 102.... Suffice to say, it takes a long time before you fall asleep!
- A few months ago, you surprised us by counting backwards!

- You know how to spell your name. You know that Daddy is called David and Mummy is called Pauline. I'm trying to teach you to memorise our address and my phone number. You remember which bus numbers we catch to go to school.
- "Oh dear..." "Oh my goodness!" and the ever funny one that I'm sure you picked up from us, "Oh my gawd.....!"
- You love singing the Alphabet song and the Thomas song. Yesterday I got a cute video of you singing the Thomas song at breakfast.
- You know lots of colours in both English and Chinese
- When we ask you to speak Chinese, you'll start reciting the numbers. Grandma says you can count quite far in Chinese as well. Such a smart cookie.

Daycare:
You still cry when you drop you off for school. In fact, you sometimes start complaining before we even reach the door.
"I want to go home! I want to see Mummy! I don't want to go to school"

I'm told you calm down after a few minutes and happily play the rest of the day. I love picking you up from daycare because you're always so excited to go home! You'll shout loudly: "Bye everyone!" and run to get your shoes.

Here's a video from last month when I picked you up (2y8m):

Daycare pickup (2y7m) - look at that big smile!

Daycare pickup (2y5m) - I love capturing your reaction when you see me.

Just for fun, this was your reaction to seeing us when we picked you up from your first day at daycare:

2y5m - Mummy's work trip

I was away on a work trip to America for 2 weeks and got back yesterday morning. It was the longest I'd been away from you and I missed you every day! Luckily we were able to do video chats while I was away. On one of the chats, I showed you a Gordon train that I had bought you. Imagine my surprise when I saw you in the morning and asked if you wanted to see your presents and your first excited words were: "Big Gordon?" You had remembered our conversation and obviously been thinking about Big Gordon!

So, in addition to Big Gordon, I also got you lots of Disney Car toys. You were so excited to show your new toys!

We had brunch with Daddy's friends yesterday and walked through a park to get to the cafe. I asked if you wanted to play on the playground after and you excitedly said yes. When we passed the park and didn't stop to play, you looked surprised and went, "Daddy! What happened?" It was so funny, I hadn't heard you ask that question before.

This is you after our brunch, walking back to the park. You look so cheery.

You're still a very cautious boy and you take your time to warm up to new adventures. I think it's because we coddle you so much and are a bit over-protective. Once you try something for the first time though, you get comfortable and can't wait to try it again!

Here is a video of you trying the new slide in this park for the first time. You can see how cautious you are and even said you were scared when you got to the top of the slide!


And here is a 2nd video of you feeling much more brave going up the big slippery dip. Check out the huge smile on your face as you are sliding down!

2 years + 3 months: an update

Your vocabulary has improved so much these past couple months! You're at such a cute age right now. Here is an update of your likes, dislikes and funny stories:


Favourite toys:
- You've expanded your interests beyond Thomas and are now crazy about all things from the Disney Pixar Cars movie. You especially love the purple car, Holley Shiftwell.

Actually, you love anything purple!

Of course, you also like the main characters Lightning McQueen and Mater.

Gordon is still a favourite and because Gordon has the number 4 on his train, you also point out number 4 whenever you see it, especially when you see a car license plate with the number 4 on it!

Favourite activities:
You love to play with cars and trains. You love going to the park. Here's a video I took on Mother's Day this year.

Funny sayings:
- You have the cutest way of introducing yourself to people.
Lucas: "Hello friend! My is Lucas". Check out the video below when I caught this exchange!

- You also like to say bye to everything! Bye house! Bye car! Bye shopping centre! Bye bus!
- When you say "See you tomorrow" you also like to shake the other person's hand.  Such a polite boy!
- You have an incredible sense of direction. You recognise the way to the 2 shopping malls and also the 2 routes back home. You're always directing us: "Shopping centre this way!"

Favourite foods:
- Tempura
- Teriyaki
- Miso soup
- Anything Japanese!
- Yakult
- Yoghurt, as long as it has Lightning McQueen on it. You call it "car yoghurt".
- Milk
- Ice cream! You're always opening the fridge and asking us to get you ice cream, even for breakfast!

Your dislikes:
- Bath time. As soon as you hear the water running, you run to close the living room door.
- Childcare - you're still crying in the mornings when we drop you off. Though we're told you stop after a couple of minutes and you have fun the rest of the day.

Favourite songs:
- Wheels on the bus
- Ten in the bed
- Baa baa black sheep

Here's a video I took of you on the baby monitor. You woke up from a nap and was amusing yourself by pulling all the books from the bookshelf and reading/singing for ages.

You can now count to 20. You know so many colours, you can even distinguish between the colour brown and tan!

You're such a cheeky monkey and so much fun to be around!

23 months update and sticker photo

I'm a bit late with doing your sticker photos but you're still 23 months for at least another 2 weeks :) This morning while you were out mowing the lawn with Daddy, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to capture this stage in your life where you like copying what Daddy does. As soon as you heard Daddy start the mower outside, you wanted to go out and help.

Here's a snapshot at 23 months:
Sleep
We did some sleep training a few weeks ago and thankfully, it worked after only 2 days. Now I can put you down and you'll go to sleep on your own. So, no more needing to hold your hand to sleep, no more sleeping on the floor next to your crib and no more waking up in the middle of the night!  It's done wonders because you're sleeping through the night again.

So this is our bedtime routine now:
After dinner, you'll play with your toys. I'll do a countdown so you're aware of what's going to happen. I'll say: "30 minutes to bath time, and then we go to bed". You'll say, "No! No!" and go back to playing. Then it will be "15 minutes to bath time" and so on. At 5 minutes to bath time, I'll start singing the clean up song and you'll help me pack away your books and toys. After that, you're surprisingly obedient and head into your room to get changed. When you're naked, I'll say "pee pee in the potty" and you'll head over to your potty, lift the lid and sit down. Then you'll ask for a book, "read please". Sometimes you'll pee but most of the time, you just stand up after I finish your book. The potty I got you has a flush too, so I've been teaching you to put the lid down and flushing (never too young to learn!)

You love to play with the squeeze toys in the shape of a bus, plane and boat. You don't like getting your face wet when I pour water to wash the soap out of your hair but you're getting better about it. I brush your teeth while you're in the tub though this is always a bit of a struggle. Funnily enough, sometimes I can entice you to brush your teeth if I offer to clean your ears with the ear wash. You really enjoy being squirted in the ears. What a funny boy!

After your bath, I'll shout out to Daddy "Towel please!" and recently you've been copying me by saying the same thing.

Drying you on the changing table has become so difficult these days. You're constantly wiggling around and trying to squirm off the table. We try to have a book or train around to distract you. Then it's pjs on and a sleep sack. Every time the sleep sack comes out, you'll rub your eyes and yawn, it's a pretty good trigger.

Your 2 favourite bedtime books are: The 12 engines of Christmas (which I have to sing exactly like the Christmas song) and then another Thomas nursery book where you point out the characters, do some counting and point out colours.

After that, you turn on the turtle night light that projects the moon and stars to the ceiling. You always choose the blue light (there are 3 colours to choose from). Then we turn on the lullaby bear which you've been listening to ever since I can remember. I cuddle you for a bit while you snuggle on my shoulders and then after a little while, I'll put you down in the crib. When I leave the room, you'll still put up a protest and cry for a few minutes but after that, you'll lie down and go to sleep. And luckily (touch wood), you'll sleep through the night until 6.30-7.

Eat
You're a very fussy eater these days. You'll eat if it's Asian food, particularly rice or noodles. Though last Thursday, Aunty Mandy and I took you out to Westfield for some food after childcare and you were crazy about chocolate-dipped strawberries! That was surprising because you normally don't like sweet food.

You particularly like Japanese food - miso soup, teriyaki beef or chicken and rice is your favourite meal. You also guzzle down milk, which is good so I know at least you're getting plenty of calcium. You're not very keen on bread or western-style food, so poor Daddy is always out-voted when it comes to lunch or dinner.

You don't like eating your greens or fruit either, so my way around it is to make milkshake and mix fruit inside.

Talk
Your vocabulary is improving every day! You know to use "please" now when you want something, so we get a lot of "read please" and "ipad please" these days. You're learning to put 3 words together as well, ie. "go down please". You are always singing and humming the Thomas song. You also like to copy us when we are talking, you'll copy the intonation and pitch. I've noticed if a group of us are talking and laughing, you'll join in the laughing too.

Toys:
Still crazy about Thomas. These days you also like to build Thomas blocks, string the trains together, stack things on top of Thomas, pull out the Thomas books and put them back in the box. You also push the Thomas ride on around. And of course, when Daddy does the mowing, you'll pull out your lawn mower too.

More photos below:

21 & 22 months: videos galore!

I recently got a new iPhone with plenty of storage, which explains why I have so many videos of you now! I've also been obsessed with making iMovies, which are so easy and so much fun.

This was the very first iMovie I made, a compilation of your dance moves whenever the Thomas theme song comes on.


This was a video I made of you playing at our local park. You make so many funny expressions!



A video taken during bed time of you counting 1 to 10. Aunty Mandy says you sound like Gollum! haha


Singing Twinkle Twinkle

21 months: talking and more videos

You're very vocal these days and communicating so well. Here you are doing your little Thomas wiggle:

You don't like interrupting your play time to have a bath and then going to sleep. In fact, you would rather clean up your books than have a bath!

We can't stop laughing when we hear your cute "No's":

This is how you say your good-byes. You've picked up the "pound it" motion:

Some photos from daycare. You got dressed up as a dinosaur and played with the blocks:

 Playing with your lego:

At the local library. You're wearing a Thomas t-shirt, Thomas jacket, holding a Thomas train and somehow found the one and only Thomas DVD on the shelf. Talk about obsessed!

Click to see more videos:

16 & 17 months: lots of videos

You have such a unique dancing style! Watch how you shake your leg and wiggle your body...

Playing and dancing to your new drums, a gift from Aunty Marie.

You are already a candy crush addict! So young and already playing on the ipad...

 
You have the cutest way of doing 'high-five'. This is with your grandparents at lunch last week. When they ask for a high-five, you move their hands so that they high-five each other.

I took you out for dinner last week after daycare...this is you being cheeky after dinner.

16 months: walking at the park

We went to the local park near your grandparent's place so you could practise more walking.  You had a wonderful time on the swing, slide and cruising around the equipment.

16 months: bubbles

I tried out the new bubble machine. You loved popping the bubbles.

14 months: photos from my iphone

Here are some photos from last month that I finally uploaded from my phone. These are the everyday moments at home and out and about.

 You look so mature compared to your 9 month photos!

Mummy and Daddy take you into the city on the bus for 2 days a week to attend daycare. We've been taking you in the carrier but now that you're getting bigger, we'll have to take the stroller.

How cute do you look in the adidas hoodie that Aunty Mandy bought you?

15 months: lots of videos

I was hanging out the laundry yesterday while you played on the mat in the garden. You crawled over to me and started taking out the pegs and giving them to me to hang up the laundry. It was so sweet! I got Daddy to take a video of it today.

We've got lots of mandarins growing in the garden, so I picked one from the tree. You loved eating them and refused to share with Daddy.

Some more videos...

14 months: videos of you playing

You still love holding on to your green coin. Recently you've been hiding your coin underneath your tray and then taking it out with a flourish when we ask you where the coin is. It's so cute. You also try to hide your sippy cup but it's a bit big to hide.

Here's a video from a couple of weeks ago playing throw and catch with grandma and grandpa.

13 months: another park

We've started exploring our neighbourhood and checking out all the parks. We went to visit this one last week and it was particularly cool. It's been a bit cold and wet lately so we were lucky to have some time at the park before it started raining.