20mths old: Balance board, singing

Loving the balance board

Week 87 / 20 months old:

May 24: Grandpa bought her a balance board as part of a housewarming present and bb LOVES it so far. She has been playing on it non-stop since the day she received the gift. I’m so glad that she’s learning to balance on it and can play creatively too like sliding down on the curved part. Now she doesn’t need to slide down DH’s knees anymore (lol). The balance board is the “Tippytoe” brand and bb can pronounce “tippy toe” perfectly. She mentions it whenever she wants to play on it.
It’s been difficult a few times this week to get her to do certain things. Like during bath time, she sometimes refuses to get out of the tub. We get concerned that the water will cool down and it’s easier for her to catch a cold with the cold water when she’s in there for too long. It takes a lot of persuasion and talking to her to finally get her to stand up and get her little body out of the tub and into a warm towel and dry. There were a few times where she didn’t want to get bathed either and it took a while for us to persuade her to go upstairs to get ready for bath time. Her little mind is learning that she can choose and delay certain routines, I guess, and she’s trying to work things out.
This week, she started playing with the exersaucer again by flipping the plastic book. The exersaucer is pretty much broken now because the sounds keep repeating themselves and it’s not the correct ones when you push the buttons anymore. But it’s still a good non-musical toy to have for the next child which is why we’re keeping it around. Bb also likes to climb into the seat as well and sit there and play with the assorted toys too.
Anyway, all this to say that I have started singing the songs to her again from the little plastic book and bb has picked up the songs “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. She pronounces “little lamb” in the most Cantonese accent, like “litto lam”. I’ll sing to her so many times and she has picked up the song a bit to be able to sing a bit of it herself. Again, I haven’t caught this on video yet. It’s hard and sometimes when she notices the camera is pointing at her, she stops singing.
Same thing when DH was reading to her and she was repeating the words that he was saying. She’s started to “learn to read” because she repeats the words that DH reads in the board books.
I identified what the mystery song she was singing was “a gee dor a baaa” which is actually a song that grandma likes to sing when bb goes on the toilet. It’s supposed to be “ke ke, fai dee chut lay baa” (poop, come out fast). Bb has picked up the song partially which is why it sounds the way it does when she sings it.
When I ask her what she has eaten for breakfast, she replies “jo chan” (breakfast). I then ask her again what did she have for breakfast? She’ll usually say “cheese”, “banana”, “bread” but it’s not always true lol. She hasn’t identified or remembered exactly what she eats for breakfast yet but sometimes she is 100% correct too!
I can now leave her on the learning tower without being too afraid that she’s fall out of it. She can get in and out of it easily and she knows to hold on to the bars too.
She also uses the learning tower to wash her hands herself now too (with supervision).
She can also get on a regular chair by herself (climb up on it and climb back down). She’s very careful about it too so I’m not afraid of her falling.
We went to a new playground over the weekend Pomona Mills Park near St. John and Bayview — actually we came here for a walk when I was pregnant with bb) and bb loved going on the slides. She is familiar with the playground structures now. She knows she has to walk up the stairs and then find the slides to slide down from. I’m glad she sees more kids this way.
I feel like I don’t pick her up as often these days. There was a day when she asked me to “po po” (hold her) and it was like the first time in a couple of days. She’s getting heavier and likes to walk on her own anyway, so the days of carrying her are slowly diminishing. I know she’ll still want to be carried probably way past six or seven years old (like most kids), but she’s no longer a little small baby that fits perfectly into our arms. She is actually half the height of my mom already.
She sometimes picks outfits and refuses to wear things that we give her. Picky dresser!
She definitely has an opinion about things. She continues to choose certain adults to help her with things. She prefers me to read books to her over grandma. She’ll say, “mm bay por por” when it comes to reading 90% of the time (not allow grandma). And then during bedtime, when I try to help her with her pajamas and sleep sack, she’ll say “mm bay ma ma. Ba ba!” (as in “not allow mom, but dad can!). And she is so used to this that she says it with a smirk and smile too. She knows that she is choosy and plays with me because she doesn’t let me to help her.
She says “mm bay” (no/not allow) a lot.
She can read the titles of a few books. She can read “I Know a Lot” and “I am so Brave”. The pronunciation isn’t perfect of course, but she remembers the book title and can say these two well.
When the grandparents visited this past weekend for the first time to our new house, bb was enamored with grandpa and actually stuck to him during the first hour or so. That was pleasantly surprising because she usually hides and needs an hour to warm up to people. She recognized her grandpa and was very content to stick to him.
On the other hand, DH’s cousin came to visit the day prior and bb wanted nothing to do with him. She hid away from him by staying in the family room and when we tried to coax her to come out, she wouldn’t. It took her up to two hours to warm up to him before she felt safe and comfortable to stand next to him and peer up at him (lol).
On average, it takes her an hour to warm up to people and crowds.
She loves staring and watching people. Like the cousin said, if it was an adult staring like that, it actually would get kind of creepy (lol). Good thing she is a toddler.
Within the past week, she’s learned all of our Chinese names and can even associate our names to pictures or items that she sees. For example, she saw the laundry on the rack and identified them to be “dad’s clothes” by saying “__ __ __ (dad’s Chinese name)’s clothes” instead of just “daddy’s clothes”.
I find it so difficult to jot down all of these observations and thoughts throughout the day and definitely need to write them down as they pop up. However, I don’t always open my phone screen conveniently to do so. But I know it’s necessary because whenever I have these long drawn-out write-ups, I feel so much better afterwards. I’m releasing so many things I notice about her and thought keeping them in my head. It’s great for memory keeping too because these small things about her will fade over time.
My goal is to get her to be fully potty trained by the time she’s two years old and a bit, so technically by autumn 2022 and no later than the end of this year. She’ll be 2 years old and 4 months old by that time and definitely will be old enough to be potty trained. It’ll be great to have her out of diapers finally.
DH and I were holding her hands while walking across the parking lot to the car and bb suddenly pulled down her hands and said “mm kak kak!” (no hand holding). It was so sudden and she released both hands at once. It was so dangerous because we were in the middle of a parking lot!
A little bit of mom guilt at the playground when we were having her slide down a slide. I didn’t catch her in time (and it was a bigger kids’ slide) and her head hit the back of the bottom of the slide when she landed. She cried a little bit but was otherwise okay.
When she repeatedly requests for crackers, I don’t mind letting her eat more of it if she wants to and if it will keep her full. DH doesn’t want her to fill up on crackers (understandable), but I also don’t mind if she does. If she wants it, why take it away from her? I feel like I’m a very laissez faire parent when compared to both DH and grandma. I don’t want to hand-hold her too much and want her to discover and do things by herself. I guess it’s the Montessori theory too of “child-led” teaching.
I always let her play with whatever she wants and I don’t guide or encourage her to play with something else unless she really is just not doing anything. It’s different from my mom who will say, “Hey, look at this or play with this”. I guess I’m more of a passive teacher. I just want to see what bb wants to do first and then support her from there. This will definitely change as she grows older though.
For me time these days, I usually just scroll on my phone. It’s so unproductive and time is just “wasted” like that. Effective me time would be going on my computer to blog about restaurants or write these weekly observation mom blog things. But I don’t always feel motivated to do that. After finishing the K-drama Crash Landing on You, I now have started on Ozark. I’m on season 2, episode 4 now. I never used to watch television series like this, but I guess it’s my way of being lazy after looking after her. I can just chill on the couch and set goals to finish certain TV shows.
Her schedule these days: Wake up around 8 or 9 a.m., eats breakfast and plays (and reading with me), lunch and milk, nap around 2 to 4 p.m. (or 1 to 3 p.m. depending on how tired she is or if she woke up earlier that day, say, at 7 a.m.), a snack when she wakes up, a walk outside if the weather is toddler-friendly, dinner around 6:30 p.m., playing and reading, milk at 9 p.m., head upstairs at 9:15 to 9:30 ish, bath and teeth brushing, usually asleep by 10 p.m. Grandma used to take her out to the playground in the morning around 11 a.m. but she’s been tired recently, so those have temporarily stopped.
Bb has never been a child who’s slept 12 hours a day, never mind 15 hours. Some babies/toddlers sleep 12 to 15 hours a day! Think of all the bonus time we could have if she slept more.
May 25: Bb played with the plastic chair today by dragging and pushing it from room to room, having so much fun with it.
When we adults have deep conversations and bb realizes this, she can play so quietly and independently on her own. Otherwise, she always likes to have us sit or play with her.