Potty Re-training Day 1

There's so much to prepare before the arrival of our little prince! One would have thought that having a second one would be much easier but...

Anyway, one of the 'projects' we have to embark on is Mission Potty Train! We have tried to potty train Baby O before with well, no success and I am determined to get it out of the way before little di-di arrives (and to achieve my Act of Green pledge from last year!). A friend who knows that I am trying to train Baby O has very generously loaned me tonnes of these re-usable training pants. (She has four boys. That explains the colours and the trains...) Since we were running out of nappies, I used it as an excuse to start training her. I told her that we had no more nappies but I got her some 'new panties' and they have trains on them! That kinda got her excited to wear them. 

So she had on 'panties' and I reminded her what felt like every five minutes or so that she had to shee-shee (slang for pee) in the potty so that she doesn't wet the trains on her panties. We had about four accidents in maybe two hours. Baby O must have forgotten that she was without nappies. 

I left the potty in the living room for easier access and during one of those times when she wanted to sit and wee, I gave her a little book and read together and waited and then... she did it! You should have seen her beaming face. I praised her and we gave each other high-fives. We were both so proud.

She even did a poo while I was cooking lunch! She told me she wanted to shee-shee again so we got her 'panty' off. While sitting there, she said she was gonna pang-sai (slang for poo) instead! She got a little panicky but I told her to sit there and wait for me and she finished before I could get to her. I again showered her with praises and high-fives and made a big fuss of what she had done while she kept asking me to quickly wash the potty. Haha...

Anyway, I didn't dare to attempt to let her continue to be nappy-less during nap time so I dug out some pull-up pants for her before nap time. When she saw them, she went 'Yay!!! Nappy!!!'. That was hilarious. I didn't want her to think that we still have nappies so I pretended to take out a pack of swim nappies and told her that those were swim nappies. Then I quickly hid the pull-up nappy pants together with the pile of training pants. When I changed her into the pull-up pants, she then said that she wanted to go swimming as she thought that I was wearing a swim nappy for her. Hmm... Mental note: Can't lie to toddler anymore.

These all happened before Baby O's grandparents arrived for the week..... Now, what next?

My Budding Artist

One of the activities Baby O loves is to draw and paint. We started her off with non-toxic Crayola mini chunky crayons since she was maybe about 18 months old? Can't remember now... she was also introduced to water colour painting which she totally loves! I also managed to buy her a box of non-toxic water-based marker pens sometime early this year and she is hooked to them! She started drawing dots and lines initially and progressed to circles just before her second birthday. Soon after that, she totally impressed me by drawing faces! She starts by drawing a circle, then place two dots as the eyes, some squiggles on the sides as ears and a line for the mouth. Sometimes the line is upturn and we get a smiley face. Other times it is downturn and we appear to have a sad face. 

A sad face

She just loves drawing these faces and can spend a looong time 'perfecting' her faces!

Practice makes perfect!

There were only so many pieces of recycled paper that I could find so I had to get her one of these magnetic drawing boards. Got this one at a bargain from Toys R Us! Original retail price was about RM39. It was on promotion for about RM28. I had a RM20 voucher so I paid only RM8+ for this! This Mama loves a bargain!

Limitless creations

And when she had enough of faces, she even attempted to write her own name!! Which I found really amazing for a two year old!!!! Although you will probably think what is that?!? ;-)

Way to go girl!

This Mommy Loves???

Recently, Baby O has been calling my Mommy instead of Mama... 'Mommy pau-pau (carry)', 'Where's Mommy?', 'Mommy there!'...

Question is, how did she know that I was also Mommy??

Countdown to Christmas - 6 Days

Baby O is 20 months old today! She is such a chatty toddler now. She talks non-stop and tries to imitate all that we say in all the different languages.

Amazingly she knows everything in her 'colors ABC numbers' book! She can identify all the following objects as well as tell you what each letter is for (though she cheats by looking at the picture we're pointing at).

 

She is able to count from one to ten and knows numbers up to twenty :-
This Mama: eleven
Baby O: twelve
This Mama: thirteen
Baby O: (mumbles)teen
This Mama: fifteen
Baby O: (mumbles)teen
This Mama: seventeen
Baby O: (mumbles)teen
This Mama: nineteen
Baby O: TWENTY!!!

She recognises the colours blue, pink, red, green and yellow correctly most of the time. She also knows what sound which animal makes:
Cow (moooo),
Owl (toot toot),
Frog (ribbit ribbit),
Dog (wow wow),
Cat (neeoww),
Lion (roar),
Pig (oink oink),
Monkey (hoo hoo hoo hoo),
Horse (neiighh),
Elephant (*tries to trumpet*),
Sheep (baa baa),
Duck (duck duck = quack quack),
Rooster (dududududu = cock-a-doodle-doo),
Fish (*opens and closes mouth to imitate fish*),
Snake (sssss),
Bee (bee-zzz),
Bird (cheep cheep cheep cheep)
Bear (roar)

She dances at every opportunity (yes, even to the clanking of pots and pans), sings ever so adorably and hums to tunes like Lullaby.

Physically, she is learning to jump and running a little but still walking a little wonky. Wondering if we should send her to a podiatrist as her feet seems to turn in a little. She now goes upstairs by herself but with us watching every step. She also tries to come down herself too but it is usually a lot faster if we just carry her down. New favourite activity would be to climb onto chairs or the piano bench. She does it at the speed of light! Scary.

All her teeth except the last four molars are out. Her body still seems warmer than usual after the bout of flu and I wonder if she is teething. Current favourite food: chicken, soup, and chicken soup. Still loves fish and fruits, milk and cheese. Basically no problems feeding her.

Baby O loves her grandparents and I notice she seems to have a soft spot for jung-jung (gong-gong aka my dad). She will 'help' him get to places by holding his hand. She will also unexpectedly go to him and give him hugs which doesn't happen with the other relatives.

It is however more difficult to get her to nap/ sleep even though she is extremely tired. She will find all sorts of excuses - read again, switch lights on etc just to delay sleep time. She has also been quite short fused lately again not sure if it is due to teething as before. We did notice though that it started after the bout of illness and usually only with me. What a bully!

Other than that, everything else seems fine. Praise God she is developing well!!

Are You Ready For Toddlerhood?

Read this article in a baby magazine some time back before Baby O was even one! Managed to find this piece and thought I would share it with you. Baby O is now 17 months old and I see some signs of what's to come!

Shopping with toddlers
Go to your local supermarket with a goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goat out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.

Getting used to messes
Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish finger behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flower beds, then rub them on the clean walls. Cover up the stains with crayons.

Getting used to messes in cars
Buy a chocolate ice cream bar and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a coin. Stick it in the CD player. Take a family-size bag of chocolate biscuits. Mash them down the back seats.

Getting ready to go out
Wait outside the toilet for half an hour. Go out the front door. Come in again. Go out. Com back in. Go out again. Walk down the front path. Walk back up it again. Walk down it again. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes. Stop to inspect minutely every cigarette butt, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way.  Retrace your steps. Scream that you've had as much as you can stand until all of the neighbours come out and stare at you. Give up and go back in the house. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Getting ready for arts and crafts
Take an egg box. Using a pair of scissors and a can of paint, turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet paper tube. Using only sellotape and a piece of toil, turn it into a Christmas tree. Lastly, take a milk container, a ping-pong ball and an empty box of cereal and make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Taken directly from the Pampers Village Magazine UK (Month 8)

Baby-O Talk

Baby O started saying words like Mama, Papa, Mum-mum, Nen-nen since she was about nine months old. At 14+ months now, she is in a different phase of life yet again as her vocabulary swells. Nowadays, if something drops on the floor, she’ll go ‘ak, oh!’ in a very deliberate manner which makes me smile all the time.

Her favourite words are probably:
‘More!’ - She says this after every single song playing on the CD and when she is ready for the next spoon of food.

‘MmOi’ (Don’t Want in Cantonese) - This word came naturally to her as we don’t usually use much Cantonese around her! Nowadays, if you ask if she wants something, she’ll either respond ‘MmOi’ or nod. Makes life a lot easier though she doesn’t always mean what she says!

‘Aik!’(Lights) - She’ll shout excitedly ‘Aik!’ when we come to a stop at every single set of traffic light. And she expects us to respond to her excitedly too! Otherwise, she’ll keep harping ‘Aik!’, ‘Aik!’, ‘Aik!’ till she gets a respond!

‘Aahh!’ (Water) - Previously, water was ‘Ter’. After observing how her gung-gung (grandpa) drinks his water and goes ‘Aaahhh!’ after that, she has ‘Aahh!’ down now as water, or anything liquid including washing liquid! Yikes!!!

‘Pa-pau’ (I want to be carried in Mandarin) - She says this while clapping her hands and then opening her arms up to be carried.

‘Mou-more’ (No More) - Said while shaking her hand to indicate that something is not there or has finished.

‘Ma-men’ (Amen) - This is one of my favourite! Said after we finish saying grace before our meals while clasping her hands and with opened, eager eyes.

‘Nen-nen’ (Breastmilk) - This is probably the mother of all words! Especially when she hasn’t been well lately and relied a lot on it for comfort. If she gets a cent for everytime she mentions this word, her university fees would have all been paid for!

‘Muck!’ (Milk) - Another one of my favourites! Because of how it sounds coming from her. Regardless whether it's in a cup or its powdery form in a container.

She can also fill in the blanks to songs and words in her books which amazes me at times. I will deliberately blank out a word at the end of a sentence and Baby O usually surprises me when she fills it up with a word that sounds like the omitted word!

Other than that, she is always grabbing her toy phone or our mobile phones and goes ‘Pa-po’ (Grandma in Cantonese) or ‘Ou’ (Hello), before continuing her pretend chat which goes something like this ‘Ou, oh... aau,.. oh.. ou...’

On the baby sign front, I wonder if it has benefited us at times. She started saying most words that she has been taught to sign since she has been more vocal. So she has never really used the signs. However, there were occasions when she did sign to communicate to us like when she wanted to tell us there were fishes in an aquarium or pants when she sees a dog and recently ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ when prompted. I feel that it was more through communicating to her all the time since she was a baby, telling her things from a mundane house chore to our whole life story and by repeating the words and songs that she has picked up these words. Wonder what other moms out there have to say about baby signs?

Wooden Blocks

I have finally found it! I was looking for some wooden ABC blocks for Baby O. I like the classic looking ones with carved out alphabets/numbers. A friend has kindly sourced and recommended the Haba wooden building blocks. They come in beautiful colours and whimsical shapes. Haba wooden blocks are from Germany and claims to be made of hard wood with completely non-toxic, child friendly finishes. However, they are a tad pricey. The 25 pieces of Eeeny, Meeny, Miny, Zoo blocks are priced at $49.99 online. Besides the make, the price has to be right too. So, let's KIV that....

Then, I asked Mr Google for 'classic wooden blocks' and he showed me these from Uncle Goose going for $33.99. Also made from non-toxic inks, these 28 pieces made-in-the-USA blocks just ain't classic enough for me. 

The same friend then recommended me The Baby Loft which stocks the Wonderworld ABC Touchy Wooden Blocks. Made from rubber wood and non-toxic colours, this Thai product is priced at RM108.90. Not too bad but didn't spur me to buy them immediately.

Then one fine day at Toys R Us, I saw these on the shelves staring right in my face saying 'Buy Me!'.  These Imaginarium wooden blocks seem to check all the right boxes! Besides being wooden and carved, it comes in ABCs (both capital and lower case!) and 123s as well as pictures.

Building blocks aids a child's development in numerous ways - touch (the carved letters), cause and effect (stacking up makes a block tower/ knock them and they fall), fine motor skills (pick/ stack/ knock), size/ shape/ colour discrimination, visual stimulation (match the blocks).

I couldn't wait for Baby O to open the box up and play! While waiting, I went searching for reviews on Imaginarium. I noticed one review on the blocks I bought mentioned something about having the same letters on different surface instead of having different letters to be able to build more words. I didn't think much of it until the time came when we (excitedly) opened up the package. Three things struck me almost immediately:

1. The contents are made up of 1/3 blocks and 2/3 packaging! Very misleading indeed! Yes, cleverly hidden behind the alphabet blocks is another empty box that helps to put everything into a presentable manner. Tsk, tsk, tsk...

2. The blocks are pretty lightweight and have sharp corners. I suppose being lightweight is a benefit when it comes to being handled by tiny toddler hands and fingers. The sharp corners will probably wear off eventually (looking at how they are being handled!). 

3. The same capital and lower letters appear on the same block together with a corresponding picture. Eg. 'M' appears with 'm' and a picture of a monkey. This is great for learning the ABCs in upper and lower case and in association with an object. Then the review mentioned above flashed back at me saying 'See! Told you so!' when I tried putting the blocks together to spell the world 'BABY' for Baby O. There are 2 blocks of its kind so there are 2 'A's and 2 'B's and so on. To my dismay, the letter 'Y' appears together with the letter 'B'. So its B(Y)-A(Z)-B(Y)... and insufficient 'Y' blocks as they have been utilised as 'B's! Yikes! I guess this can also be easily remedied by .. erm.. buying another set??!?! For the time being, it'll be just building wooden block towers and knocking them down, Bab O!