The quote is by William Shakespear, and the card is made by Le Precious. Their cakes are really nice and cute!
"Thank you everyone for the gifts!" :):)I was playing with the hand puppets when I happened to re-create a familiar scenario to xuan--an "adult" carrying a baby. She stared for a loooonnggg time (the whole event took more than half an hour. I was surprised she stayed so focused on the piggies for long!) and then started calling piglet the hand puppet 小猪爸爸 and wanted to put piglet the doll to bed. She offered her 抱枕 to piglet and wanted me to take them to the bedroom to put piggies onto the pillows. "小猪睡觉，小猪sleeping/sleepy"
Then she started saying "chain, chain" (change), "chain shirt (change shirt)", "chain trousers (change trousers)", "chain bao1bao1 (change diapers)" and I realize she is serious about putting piglet to bed, complete with her whole usual routine of changing into her pajamas, so cute! I was very touched at how she tried to act as the care giver. She actually gave her seat to the piggies and she herself sit on the chair she usually make me sit on!
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She's starting to imitate us and play make believe, and some of her habits would have been established by now. I believe strongly in creating a condusive learning environment at home and 言教不如身教. Being a role model and living a healthy life style (walking your talk!) is actually the easist way to teach kids good habits without having to teach them.
She can actually sing the whole Chinese version, in rather clear enunciation too! Not so much for the English version cos she just goes "Tinkle tinkle titer TAAARRR, ow mnrrulnder... AARRR, up bove mmllddwwrr... AAAIIII, dimond in llrrddmwe... KAAAIIII, tinkle tinkle titer TAAARRR, nbkjkjl.... AAARRRRR". With much emphasis on the last word. Still a little incomprehensible at the moment. But I just love her sweet voice! :)
It's harder to capture moments of her now cos (1)I am busier with baby no. 2, (2)she moves very fast, (3) she will stop whatever she's doing and try to grab the camera.
Infants are a little boring cos they just sleep and wake up to feed, but they feed enough times to keep you far from bored. Little Colin is now awake for almost the entire morning, and in the afternoon he naps at most for 2 hours, which means that I'm almost back to the times where I can be home the whole day but accomplishes nothing except for changing his diapers, nursing him and cuddling him to sleep.
But since he's more alert now, I can start reading to him, and do stretching exercises for him (I wouldn't be doing like how I did in this clip cos I'd have both my hands). Stretching helps him develop his muscles cos he's bedriddren all the time, poor thing! Massaging or just stroking his arms and legs makes him feel secure cos the sense of touch is very important at this stage. It also keeps me at a visible range to him, since he can only see things up to abt 25cm away.
Xuan can drink from a cup now! :D I give credits to her child care for this new skill, but we have also been letting her drink from a cup long before she turned one. To make eating fun, I bought colouful plastic cups and bowls from Ikea, and colorful spoons that changes colour if heated up. My mom also bought her a kitchen set toy which she seem to enjoy so far. We also started toasting with her cos it makes drinking fun.
A friend once said she's impressed at how xuan goes "ahhhh" after drinking water and it makes water seem so tasty! I started doing that with her every time she drinks plain water so that she doesn't reject it. She seem to stop doing that recently though. Moving on to new stuff now :)
Xuan suddenly found her little brother's gloves very interesting and wanted to wear them. She's been more or less ignoring him since he came home but today she did something sweet :) She wanted to see Chen chen sleeping on the cot and I let her sit on my lap, and she sayang-ed his head.
Right after this she turned and smiled at the camera saying "(弟弟是) 萱萱的" but Mama So stopped the camera too fast :(
Xuan likes to eat corn and raisins recently, and she can concentrate on picking the little bits for ten minutes. Usually she doesn't want to share her tibits with other people but she can be generous once in a while when she's in the mood :) By the way we think her "偶必要（我不要）" has a bit of Taiwanese slang hahaha!
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I was nursing Colin yesterday and Xuan wanted to climb onto me, but I said no, and she got upset, and continued to cling onto my back though Papa and grandma kept coaxing her to get off. Finally Papa and Mama got angry and said her name very loudly, which scared her a bit, and she finally allowed grandma to carry her away while crying. After I was done I carried her onto my lap and told her that I still love her but she must wait beside me the next time. Later on that night she suddenly came to me and kissed me on the lips, then papa, then grandma. She's usually not this affectionate.
She's just so full of surprises now :):)
Papa So has taught xuanxuan how to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"!
We have a nursery chart on the door and xuan points to which ever she wants to hear, and Mama So is supposed to sing it for her. She started to identify certain songs with certain words, so even when we are not at the chart, she would say "diddle diddle" and I have to sing "Hey diddle diddle" for her. "Titter star" is "Twinkle twinkle little star", "ding dong" is "Ding Dong Bell" and "Humpty" is "Humpty Dumpty". She has other charts like "Fruits and Vegetable", "Courtesy" and "Safety", which she enjoys pointing and identifying objects. Seeing that she responds better to chart than flip books, I bought some Chinese word charts, shape chart and more Nursery Rhyme charts to pin up around the house. Now she knows "mice" is "Three Blind Mice", "Rock" is "Rock-a-bye baby", "teapot" is "I'm a little Teapot", "Baba" is "Baa Baa Black Sheep", and these are her favourites :):)
Seeing little boy reminds me greatly of xuan when she was still so tiny... :) I am more confident this time, more calm, more composed. Muakks to my two beautiful children :):)
Xuan is starting to show some of her "terrible 2" symptoms. Being tempremental, insisting on small things like "mama sit", being cheeky about almost everything, like getting up from bed, and taking off her shoes.
Yesterday Papa So and I left her at my mom's after lunch and according to my mom, xuan continuously called out "mama, papa" as she looked at the closed door dejectedly. Ohhhhhhh :( When we came back, she clung onto me for half an hour and I felt very bad for leaving her.
Then during dinner xuan started distributing the toy golf sticks to me, my mom and herself. Xiangxiang looked on and wanted one too. I gave him mine and xuan stared. She started following xiang around saying "mama 的". (Yes! she can point to people's stuff and identify whose is that now) and I said, it's ok, I can lend it to him and u can lend your toys to others too.
At night the most amazing thing happened. She tugged at her shorts and then gave me an anxious look. She said something and started pulling my hand, so I brought her to the toilet and she peed! :D:D She is so ready to be toilet trained! :D:D
Anticipation of a line in a nursery rhyme. More importantly, irresistably cute "meowing"! :):):)
She is starting to string words together, like "奶奶家，爷爷家，爸爸家，妈妈家”，“Hi爷爷/bye爷爷”, "Bird, fly!"，“爱萱萱”(Funny, cos I'm trying to teach her 爱妈妈, but maybe she loves herself more hahha)
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Few nights ago, Papa So, Mama So and Melody were sitting on the bed. Somehow our little one didn't like it that Mama and Papa are sitting so close together, so she nudged her way in between us, saying "I sit, I sit!" We shifted a couple of times to "verify" that she is actually trying to "separate" us and true enough, even when she is sitting in between us, she will try to "untangle" our legs if Mama and Papa's legs were touching! :D:D
Xuan got herself busy transferring stickers from the table to the toy car...
It's Children's Day and Melody had fun with her cousin Keagan at the playground! :):)
I know this looks a little scary, but I think she was actually saying "Happy!" when she slid down? She did get into a little accident on the slide too. A boy kicked her in the head while coming down and she's still at the bottom of the slide. Poor thing!
And finally, her favourite...climbing up and down the stairs! And unassisted too! :):) It puts my mind at ease cos I know that she won't fall off the stairs. She will either look for the railing or our hand for support if she can't manage the step. I also noticed that her right leg is the stronger leg.
