Week 82: Bouncer chair play, says “bye bye” to stuffed animals, learning colours, “氹氹轉” nursery rhyme

Letting the toddler walk around on her own in an empty playground

Week 82:

Apr 15: So impressed when she started playing with her puzzle pieces like an open-ended toy this week. I showed her how to put one of the animals on one of the toy cars as if it was riding it. She watched in fascination :D. She later demonstrated it the next day by also playing with one of the pieces in a similar way. Yay! Now the puzzle piece is no longer a puzzle but it has become an individual toy in itself :). That is what open-ended play is and how she will be building her creativity.
Another example was when she was pretend cooking and serving food to her stuffed animals. She actually took one of the square magnetic tiles and put it underneath the pot before putting the pot on the table. This is akin to what we (adults) do! We put pot holders on the table when we serve meals. Amazing display of creativity. I can’t wait to see what else she can do with the magnetic tiles and how else she manipulates other individual items into play.
I removed the felt vegetables, cupcakes, and pizza from her play area. She doesn’t play with those enough and those toys are too closed-ended. They are super cute and “looks nice” in a playroom (especially the pizza and vegetables) but other than identifying them as the vegetable or forced to make the pizza every time the same way, they offer no creativity at all. Also, felt toys like these are harder to keep clean. If bb has grubby or oily hands that we aren’t aware of and she holds those items, they get dirty and brown very quickly and it’s difficult to wash. But mostly, she hardly picks them up to play after the initial newness wore off. She won’t miss them and her play won’t be impacted. In fact, she will use other toys as substitution which increases and challenges her creativity. And she still has the plastic vegetables and other food items anyway. I realize plastic play food is easier to take care of and more durable.
I joined grandma and bb to the park/playground. Bb loves to go on the spinning structure. What do you call it? It’s like a thing that has 2 seats (or you can stand on it) and someone holds and walks alongside it holding it to keep the whole thing spinning… Update: it’s called the “spinner” or “merry-go-around”.
Bb was not familiar enough with the playground to go up the stairs but I carefully coaxed her.
My mom has such a different way of parenting bb. She is helicopter parenting and always holds bb’s hand when walking in case she falls. For me, I let bb go and I want her to walk alone. We’re safe inside the playground and there aren’t other people there anyway. Bb needs to be comfortable walking by herself. My mom is afraid she’ll trip or fall. My stance is to *let* her fall. The playground is made of sand so she won’t be hurt. Kids are meant to fall and get hurt just a little…
Apr 20: This week, she refused to sit in her own high chair a few times but instead wanted to sit next to me on the chair at the dining table instead. So we plopped the booster off of the high chair and let her sit next to me lol. She seemed to enjoy sitting like an adult right next to me (she’s usually sitting at her high chair at the head of the table).
She likes the Bounce towels commercial on the Fairchild channel which starts off with a tune like “yeen faun” and she’s been emulating how it sounded when she first heard it. Now it’s become “her” thing where she’ll ask for it and then look forward to hearing it when we have that channel on at night during dinner time.
She is too immersed in the TV screen when we have it on after dinner. It’s hard when DH and my mom are watching the screen too,…
This week, she really enjoys sitting in her old bouncer chair and playing with the rotating toys on it. It’s funny because that chair is supposed to be for infants, not a toddler! But she insists on sitting in it and playing with it.
She also has enjoyed putting one of the Tupperware containers on top of her head and wearing it like a hat 😆 .
Bought some crayons for her to draw with! She can scribble really well but that’s about it and after leaving lots of marks on the paper, there isn’t much else for her to do with it. She doesn’t grasp the idea of drawing concept things with it. She’ll have to be older for her to be more interested in it
She likes wearing her dad’s big blue slippers in the house and actually can wear them pretty well lol
I noticed she has a bit of a lazy eye in her left eye… we will have to keep watch and monitor it
She had a bit of ice cream for the first time this week when we were at an AYCE restaurant. She had vanilla, mango, and chocolate flavours.
This past week, I got an art easel for her from FBM for only $15 (I hope I don’t regret this purchase as she’s not really old enough yet to use it, but then again if she doesn’t end up using it much, I can always re-sell it). The seller was nice enough to include the drawing paper and chalk too! We also got two toddler coats for her, both for $10. ^_^ And also a compact booster seat for $10 too! The original one sells for $99 on Amazon. Buying used is the way to go.
I also sold back the felt play vegetables/desserts and plastic play tea set that I got last year. Yay! Bought it for $20 and sold it back to someone else for $20. So nice not to have clutter inside the home.
We took our own booster seat when we ate out at the AYCE restaurant, but we realized that the tray is too bulky and that’s why I decided to get an extra compact booster seat for her. I hope we’ll get to go out more often to dine out so she can use it… after a recent relative and their entire family all contracted COVID-19, we are much more wary now and why we didn’t even go anywhere during the Easter long weekend. Better to be safe than sorry…
When it is her naptime or bedtime, bb initially refuses to go. But then I’ll mention the details like her stuffed doll is waiting for her and that she’ll get some milk or that she needs to change a diaper, then she’ll willingly say “sai bak bak” or “gwai gu la” and then head upstairs. It’s great.
Bb doesn’t seem to enjoy eating rice or congee on its own. If we flavour it with soup or add some sauce or other ingredients in it, then she’ll eat it more readily. She doesn’t eat enough rice to fill herself up. Her solid favourites are yogurt (she’ll happily go to the fridge every day to grab one and eat it herself — with our overseeing) and blueberries.
It is so cute that she waves and says “bye bye” to her stuffed animals before she sleeps at night. She actually says it individually to each one too 😆♥. She says, “Bye bye Minnie mouse, bye bye turtle, bye bye little monster, bye bye strawberry, bye bye turtle” (she has two) lol.
When we go out on a walk and I tell her to wave at someone or an animal, she actually does too.
When she meets someone new or unfamiliar, she defaults to a mean mugging look or it actually looks like she’s giving people a cut eye 😆.
I took her out to the playground after walking around the neighbourhood. I let her watch the kids play first since it was their recess time and I didn’t want her getting scared. Also, it was safer to wait for the kids to leave first. Bb enjoyed watching the older toddlers and kids play and said things like “swing”, “spinning around”, etc.
When the kids had left to go back into the school, I took bb out of her stroller and let her choose what to play with. She likes the bee, the spinner, swings, and the car. I let her walk around on her own too until she wanted to be held. She didn’t refuse when I put her back in the stroller because she was so tired from all the excitement. She napped a full 3 hours after we got back and had lunch. Yay!
Bb is slowly picking up colours this week. Last week, she tried but didn’t name colours correctly. Now this week, she can identify “green” almost 99% of the time. She is still working on other colours like blue, yellow. Red, she can identify sometimes too. I think colours must be harder for her to remember and identify since it seems to be more of an abstract concept. She remembers physical items or things we say much easier. Her vocabulary is pretty good for a 19-month-old.
And yes, she’s 19 months old now! Yay! She’s older than 1.5 years old but when we meet people and they ask her how old she is, I don’t respond with the typical “19 months old”. I just say about 1.5 years old. I know a lot of parents tend to describe using months and apparently some people think it’s silly that parents keep using the months unit when they’re anywhere above a year old. I just round it up or down because I think it’s easier to understand.
When we play this week, she asks me to make a box (cube) using the magnetic tiles. Then she will like to put the animal cards inside it.
We have so many kitchen play items for her. She frequently likes to prepare food and serve it to her stuffed animals. Also, a few times after doing so, she said something that sounded like “sik fan” which is what we say when dinner is ready and it’s on the table in Cantonese. 😆
She copies and picks up everything we do. This is why we have to be so careful about what we do in front of her.
I started adding the question “where were you born” and having her answer that too. She hasn’t picked it up yet, but I know she will. Up to now, she can also answer what month she was born in as well as the date.
I love hearing her little voice and how she sometimes talks to herself when she is playing. She has a little nasally tone to it, but to me it’s the cutest thing ever to hear.
This week, a major thing also is that she is able to remember and repeat a four three-phrase nursery rhyme! It’s in Cantonese, but the first part goes like this: 氹氹轉 , 菊花園 , 炒米餅 , 糯米糰
Last week, she could only say the first part “氹氹轉”. Then she followed up with “菊花園” and now this week, she can say the third and fourth parts too! So incredible ^_^
Here’s the YouTube video of the Cantonese rhyme in song form starting at the 1:51 timestamp:

And then we were also thinking that if she can memorize and repeat this, she could probably learn something more substantial and useful lol. Something like her home phone number or address or her dad or mom’s name lol. We had her repeat the home address and home number perfectly. Now she just has to memorize it 😂😂😂.
Whenever it’s time for her to have a bottle of milk, if we even mention anything related to the bottle or milk, she knows it now and will cry until you give it to her.
She does this face where she’ll cry and huge big teardrops will roll down her cheeks if she doesn’t get what she wants…
There was a week a while ago when she would request to watch the TV in the family room, but once I realized it was becoming a habit for her, I quickly shut it down and she didn’t ask daily again. But somehow this week, she led me to the family room and got on the couch and asked to watch TV. I didn’t let her… yet she turned the TV on with the remote herself. The Google Chromecast screensaver was on, so we watched landscapes for a few minutes while I described things to her lol.
I realize the thing about toddlers is that you really need to let them do their own thing and avoid forcing them to do something the parent wants. It’s the way to avoid tantrums. They get upset because they aren’t understood (because of their lack of verbal skills at the moment). You would get upset too if someone didn’t understand something you wanted because you can’t voice it. So I think it’s important to listen and see what she needs and wants before pushing her to do something. When bb repeats something and we don’t understand her at first, she keeps repeating it until she’s understood.