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

2014 Merry Christmas

Another wonderful Christmas spent with family. We put up the Christmas tree a week before Christmas and surprisingly, you did not try to open the presents under the tree! Here is a rare photo of you with the Santa hat on, you were not as cooperative as you were last year...

We spent Christmas Day with Grandma & Grandpa Tran. Aunty Yvonne cooked a yummy roast and after lunch you got a huge surprise!

 Here's a video of you in action with your new wheels!

Exhausted from all the excitement of Christmas Day.

 Your favourite past-time: collecting all your trains and lining them up.

We spent Boxing day at home with a BBQ. There were lots more presents for you (all Thomas-related of course!) We even had Aunty Katrina and Uncle Dan joining us via Skype on our TV - love technology!

Giving Grandma a kiss

All the presents waiting to be opened!

Here's another video capturing the day:



I took lots of videos this year to make these iMovies, so don't have as many photos compared to last year.

Here are some more non-iMovie videos of you opening presents - love your squeal of delight when you see it's more Thomas!

22 month sticker photos

I took these photos with Daddy this afternoon (a week later than your usual sticker photos). You were laughing and having fun playing with Daddy outside so I ran into the house to get the big camera. Love these photos that I captured. You have such a cheeky personality!

Love your big smiles

Your "I'm dobbing on Daddy" face

You're only 2 months away from turning 2! This year you have developed so much. Your verbal skills in particular have improved this past month. Just today at lunch, you wanted water and said, "more please". Daddy and I were so surprised! You like doing things at your own pace though. When Daddy and I asked you to say "please" again, you refused. You have quite a stubborn streak! You are still ga-ga crazy over Thomas the Tank Engine. You are collecting quite the stash thanks to your generous Aunties, Uncles and Grandparents. You could listen to the Thomas theme song day and night and love singing the song.

Aunty Katrina was saying how you seem to have 2 Thomas t-shirts in rotation, that's because you refuse to wear anything that doesn't have Thomas on it! If your Thomas t-shirts are in the wash, you'll deign to wear one of the other characters but even then you have a pecking order. First you'll wear James and if that isn't available, you'll agree to wear Percy. The carers at daycare say you have quite a quirky personality and grow very attached to things. Last week, I went to collect you from daycare and the carers said they had to specially wash and dry the t-shirt you were wearing because you spilled milk on it and they wanted to change you but you refused to change into the other non-Thomas t-shirt that we packed in your bag. I now pack one of your little toys to take to daycare  because you like the comfort of having something familiar with you during the day. I always find you still holding your toy at the end of the day.

You've really regressed in your sleep this past month. It seems to have coincided with me weaning you earlier in the month. I've been trying to replace the bonding experience with extra cuddles at night but you are now demanding I hold your hand until you fall asleep. This also means when you wake up in the middle of the night, you want me to hold your hand til you fall asleep again. These days I just end up sleeping on the floor next to your crib because I'm so tired. We need to sleep train you again but now that you're older, you seem to be more scared of being alone in the room so I'm hesitant to do the cry it out method with you. We'll just have to take it slowly.

This is what happens when we ask you were your belly is

 New words that you've been saying this month:
- Lots of Thomas characters, in particular 'Gordon'. It looks like Thomas has a new rival now. You are loving any pictures or books with Gordon in it.
- paper, please, car, train, home, up, down, ants, straw, sticker, juice, rice, bowl, blue, shoes, hello, flower, oval, bye bye (or dai dai as you pronounce it), water

Sticker video:

More photos below:

21 month sticker photos

A belated posting of your 21 month sticker photos that I took last month. You were not in a smiley mood when I took you outside to play with your favourite toys. You're absolutely obsessed with your trains.

Perfecting the Asian crouch

Those big pouty lips

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:

21 months: little smarty pants

You have picked up on so many new words this month! It's amazing how quickly you can repeat back new words to us. You're also very good at memorising the Thomas & Friends characters and able to associate them with their numbers. Here's a video of you pointing to the different characters underneath the numbers as part of your bedtime routine:

You're also learning to count:

You absolutely love singing the Thomas theme song:

You have really random vocabulary and have picked up the words: oval and flower

This is a funny video of you being upset because Daddy took your iPad and wouldn't let you play with it anymore:

20 months: an update

Sorry Lucas - I missed your 20 month sticker photos! Something kept coming up and we just never got around to it. We have lots of photos this month though from our holiday to Vanuatu. You're such a funny boy, I want to record all the funny things that have happened.

Things you love:
- the ipad! Oh my gosh, Daddy and I have to spell out the word 'ipad' now because if we say the word, your ears immediately perk up and you ask for it. You are an absolute pro on it, you've found all the games I tried to hide in folders and you figure out how to play them without us teaching you. We had no choice but to give you the ipad during dinner time at Vanuatu, otherwise you would be so disruptive and throw your toys on the ground or complain loudly. Without fail, one of the waiters or guests would walk by and see you tapping away at the screen and they would remark at how smart you are. Same thing happened on the flight back, an old lady actually brought her friend over to watch you play because they couldn't believe you knew what to do. We're giving you an ipad-detox right now that we're home because it's too unhealthy to be so fixated on the ipad.
- you sing along to quite a few songs now, it's so cute that you can carry a tune even though you can't quite say the words. Songs that you like - wheels on the bus, there was a farmer who had a dog and Bingo was his name, alphabet song
- speaking of words, you love to say 'No'. You say it all the time. It's like you're going into the terrible two's already! You love to push boundaries, you ignore us if you don't want to listen and you're very unpredictable!
- Thomas. Oh my gosh, how did I forget to mention your crazy fan addition for anything Thomas! The last 2 nights, you fell asleep hugging a Thomas book. You would refuse any book but Thomas. If we take the book from you before you've fallen asleep, you would cry and demand it back. It's hilarious watching you hug such oversized and heavy books to sleep! You also insist on wearing clothes with Thomas on it. On the weekend, I was dressing you in summer clothes but you spied a long-sleeve Thomas hoody. It was too hot to wear the hoody but you refused to let it go. So I compromised by letting you hold the hoody while I put a short-sleeve shirt on you. You continued to hold the hoody throughout the car ride to the local shopping centre.
- whenever a song comes on that you like (particularly the theme songs to children's shows) you will wiggle your bum and move your shoulders. You also do the shoulder wiggle when you eat something that you like, it's like you can't contain your delight and have to do a little shimmy to express your happiness.
- you have this uncanny ability to recognise our car. We try to trick you with other black cars but you somehow recognise which one is ours. Daddy and I were at the shopping mall the other week and were having trouble finding our car, you had actually spotted it before we did after we walked right past it. You excitedly screamed, "There! There!"
- You're fascinated with belly buttons, especially your own. Now that the weather is warmer, I've been dressing you in t-shirts and shorts, so you love to pull your t-shirt up and point to your belly.

Sleep:
- Earlier this month, we learnt a trick that would put you back to sleep when you woke up in the middle of the night. Previously I would wake up bleary-eyed whenever you cried and usually ended up carrying you into our room to sleep because you would refuse to sleep. One night, I was so tired that I used our baby monitor and used the intercom function to tell you to go back to sleep. To my utter amazement, after I said, "Lie down, Lucas. Go to sleep" you immediately laid down and went to sleep! I thought it was a fluke but it happened the next night. I called it my, "voice of God" trick. Whenever I used it, you would look around a bit confused and then immediately fall to the crib and go to sleep. You're getting a bit smarter now so it doesn't work during the day but on the occasion when you wake in the middle of the night, the "voice of God" still works.

Eat:
- You're so fussy and only like Asian food. We had lots of trouble getting you to eat the food in Vanuatu because they did not have any Asian options, so we had to order risotto practically every meal for you.
- Favourite foods: miso soup, yoghurt, watermelon, vanilla milkshakes, french fries
- At restaurants, you take your bowl and very loudly say 'BOWL!' to the waiters, your way to express that you want food NOW! It's funny and a bit mortifying.
- Your signal to us when you no longer want to eat is to close your eyes and move your head around, it's as though if you don't see your food then you don't have to eat it. Or you will pretend like you want to fall asleep by rubbing your eyes so that your hand is in front of your mouth and we can't put get the spoon near your mouth. You've actually been doing this since we first started feeding you but I didn't remember to write it until Daddy reminded me.

Play:
- Trains, cars, anything with wheels!
- Thomas. Anything that has Thomas on it.
- You still love books, especially Thomas books.

Say:
-You have your own language and babble away to yourself all the time
- You're still not saying very much though you understand everything we say, including Chinese words from your Grandparents
- English words: No, book, more, there, da da (Thomas), bus, wow (and it is expressed as Wow!), hi, hello, bye, shoes, choo choo (train), vroom vroom (car), bowl, yesh (yes), bah (for smoochy kiss)...that's all I can think of for now
- Still not saying mummy or daddy :(

How cool are these little gifs - I just found the feature on the blog!