Lots of fun at the Science Centre!

Week 88 / 20 months and 1 week old: 

• June 1:  I was a little annoyed at the beginning of this week when I realized bb couldn’t be put down for naptime as easily as before.  Since I’ve been working live reporting jobs more this week and thus spending more time on scoping transcripts afterwards, I sometimes have been missing her naptimes.  Since I’m not the one to put her down for a nap consistently anymore, she has strayed from her routine.  A number of times when I did put her down for a nap, she wouldn’t get in her sleep sack and wouldn’t lie down to sleep by herself.  She used to do it so easily and smoothly.  I gave up staying in the room with her if she wasn’t going to nap so I just let her stay in the room and she actually did eventually fall asleep by herself.  But I’ll never forget how sad it looked to see her head leaning against the mattress on the Nanit camera and trying to nod to sleep by herself.  She did sleep eventually, but it looked so sad to see her alone like that.  💔
• In the same vein of things, bb has been very defiant this past week — more so than usual.  She really likes to exert her independence and says “no” (“mm bay”) so often.  She doesn’t want to eat.  She doesn’t want to bathe.  She doesn’t want to go to bed.  She doesn’t want to get out of the bath tub.  She doesn’t want so-and-so to help her and only wants a specific adult.  She doesn’t want a particular stuffed toy sitting on the chair.
• She even was able to say “mm yong yee” this week which means “don’t want to”. 😑
• The biggest issue this week has been her not eating enough during mealtime to the point that when I pick her up, I can feel less meat on her.  I know I previously said I know that toddlers will sometimes throw fits where they go through fasting periods, but when it actually happens to your own child, you get worried that they’re not eating enough and will starve.  Now that I’m writing about this, I know that she wouldn’t be able to starve herself intentionally, but I still get worried that she’s not eating enough.
• She craved crackers and liked blueberries and yogurt last week and this week, none of those things appeal to her.
• I’ve been capturing her less and less.  I don’t even take photos sometimes anymore for a couple of days at a time…
• This week, she’s enjoyed pushing the small green plastic chair around the hallway.  She really enjoys it.
• DH fixed the straps on the trike temporarily and took bb out on a ride on it.  She looked so grown up on the trike.  He said she wasn’t holding the handle bars all the way though.  She must be so used to sitting in a stroller and just relaxing that she wasn’t used to riding a bike-like transportation device.
• I did capture on video the process where I ask her “Do you want something to drink?” and she’ll understand right away what I’m asking her:  milk.  Then she comes running from wherever she is and says “nai nai nai” and walks towards the kitchen counter and looks above at the countertops for it.  I’ll hand the bottle of milk to her, uncap it, and she’ll hold the bottle.  If I don’t give her the cap, she asks for it because she always wants to hold the cap in one hand while she drinks the bottle with the other.  Either she says “thank you, mama” herself or I have to prompt her with “What do you say” and then she’ll say it lol.  This habit is engrained now.
• Bb usually says “mm goi”/thank you of her own accord whenever we help her do something.
• One of the playful things she’s been doing this week is hitting her stuffed turtle animal with an object and then saying “mo see gone” (it’s not a problem).  We laugh about it but we also really wonder where she learned this sly behaviour from.
• Bb attended her first adult’s birthday party this past weekend!  My friend finally was able to host a birthday party after two years of pandemic life and we were so thrilled to attend and see everyone.  I was very impressed that bb was initially shy and curled up for about two minutes when we entered the house and then when we gave her her water bottle, she sat right up and drank it and then wasn’t very shy afterwards.  I think where we were sitting mattered too because we were on a two-seater couch with a large coffee table right in front of it.  Bb must have felt comfortable watching the other adults from behind the coffee table.  She behaved so well at the party and towards the end of the night was walking around the dinner table and wanted to play with the balloons too.

Toddler digging into the crackers from the charcuterie board at the party

• We hadn’t gone out for a while and so bb wasn’t able to nap in the car, which meant we weren’t able to clip her nails lol…  But finally this week, bb passed out in the car after an outing and grandma was able to clip her fingernails AND toenails.  Woohoo!  Her nails were so long and dirty.
• Her bangs are getting long again.  Another haircut is in her near future.
• She hasn’t played as much with the balance board this week.  That sure was a short-lived toy.  However, I still find it useful as we adults can use it too for exercise or balancing.  Whenever I try to play on it though, bb says “mm bay”/no and doesn’t let us… lol.
• She can partially sing the “Twinkle twinkle little star” song.  She prompts me to sing the “Up above the world so high” part by saying “up abov”.
• When we try the Chinese nursery rhyme this week, she says “mm gay dut” (I don’t remember) repeatedly and refuses to recite it.  She wants us to play the song on our smartphones but we really don’t want her to get used to watching the music video on the small screen, so we just recite it ourselves.  She doesn’t like that though and thinks we’re asking her to recite it for us.
• Bb has really regressed in her sleeping habits this week.  She got up between 2 and 4 times this week.  That’s like a newborn!  I think it is tied to her eating less this week.  Or probably the hot weather too…
• (Due to her eating less, she’s been filling up on milk… just like a newborn/infant…)
• These days when she wakes up in the night, she sometimes specifically calls out “por por” and requests grandma to be the one to get her instead of her dad.  This girl is so specific and demanding… lol.
• This week, she’s been repeating the phrase “ha hui”.  She is referring to the little crochet monster toy that she likes to “pick on” which is “ha”-ing someone in Cantonese.  She always smirks and finds it so funny.
• I really hope bb eats more next week.  I don’t want her to lose any more weight.
• We even changed back to the Kirkland branded yogurt to see if the extra sugar would help her sleep more.  (I distinctly remember her stop sleeping through the night when we switched yogurt brands.) Alas, it doesn’t seem to be the case and bb is not sleeping through the night.  She wasn’t interested in yogurt this week much anyway.
• I’ve still been hiding away from the pollen that’s outside, so it’s only been grandma and DH who have been taking bb out on walks and to the playground.
• Bb is biased towards her Minnie Mouse stuffed animal and likes to “bully” the other ones.
• During one of our dinners this week, bb specifically asked for the green spoon.  She said “luk sik chi gun” and repeated it until we found it for her.  I was so impressed because she specifically asked for something so clearly.
• She is pretty good with identifying colours now.  She can identify green and blue 95% of the time.  She’s still working on yellow and red.  She mistakened the colour white as grey when we were reading the coding book.
• There were a few times this week when I was on a job and grandma was prepping food or busy in the kitchen so bb was playing by herself more often this week.  I was so impressed that she took the triangle magnetic tiles and actually put them together piece by piece with all the sides touching.  I contemplated taking a picture of it at the time but didn’t and now I feel like I should have to include in this blog post.  That’s impressive that bb was able to manipulate the magnetic tiles by herself like that with no one showing her how.
• Bb still requests for me to make a cube with the square magnetic tiles.  I show her how I make it by putting three square tiles in a row and then putting one on top of the middle one and then one on the bottom of the middle one.  Then I’ll show her how I push the ones outside of the middle tile up together to make the cube.  Bb gets the gist of it now and can do it herself too.  She loves putting items inside of the cube once it’s assembled.  She puts a toy corn or teacup in it and likes to open and close the “door” or the top lid of the cube.
• Bb put the cupcake toy inside of the play cups or plates and likes to say “sik dut” (dinner is ready).  She likes to put the toy animals on the chairs around the table to serve them food (easy copying play where we do that nightly at the dinner table).
• I have been enjoying my live reporting jobs so, so much.  I love these short jobs because it means I can finish the transcripts in less than a day and everything is done and out of the way.  I had another short job this week where it was booked for 3 hours but ended up being only 22 minutes lol.  So awesome.
• Last but not least, we visited the Ontario Science Centre today!  DH took a day off so that we could use the free passes on a weekday in hopes that the place would be less busy (spoiler:  it actually wasn’t and there were two schools with kids/middle schoolers there for field trips; so busy at times…).
• We visited the Kidspark area on the 4th floor right away and it was so great for bb to walk around with nearly everything at her height level and expose her to different sensory activities (lights, button-pushing, sounds, water play, sound, etc.).  There were a lot of kids and adults flowing in and out of the space and bb did pretty well for the most part.  She didn’t really need to warm up in the new environment and was content to explore almost right away.
• I loved that the Kidspark section had a Kidspark Cafe area with dining chairs where we were able to take a lunch break and enjoy our homemade sandwiches and snacks before we went in for more fun.  It wasn’t until the second half of our visit that we realized that there was a supermarket and harvesting play area for the kids.  (The entire Kidspark section is only for kids under 8 years old.) It was an incredible play space.  You could pick up realistic toy vegetables and fruits and meat products and dairy and seafood and canned items and put them in shopping baskets, shopping carts, and walk around the aisles of food and then check out at the cashier.  It was a kids’ world dream come true.  There were SO many kids walking in and out playing with everything and collecting and disposing of items left, right, and center.  At this point, bb was very tired and probably overstimulated already but she still kept going.  We were so amazed with the play space.
• There was a harvest area too where you could pick the stuffed apples off the tree wall, tomatoes off of the bushes, corn off the wall, mushrooms out of the ground, and carrots, turnips, cabbages, and more out of the “soil”.  You could put those items in a wagon or in a weaved basket.  It was amazing!
• Bb then also played with the rolling balls on the tracks.  It was so fun for her to let the balls go and watch them come down the track.
• We visited the human edge section as well and the limited time edition flight section before we finally left.  By this point, it was around 2:30 p.m. and when we were walking towards the exit doors, to my surprise, bb had completely fallen asleep in her stroller!  This was the first time this happened (she’s fallen asleep in it as an infant when we took her on walks but this was her passing out due to sheer exhaustion from all of the play and stimulation).  She even stayed asleep when DH transferred her from the stroller to the car seat.  It was amazing.
• We can’t wait to go back to the Science Centre for her play time because that Kidspark section is out of this world and offers so much open-ended play and learning possibilities.  I give incredible kudos to the thinkers and makers who created that space.  Despite getting free passes, it was worth every penny of the value of the ticket to take her here for playtime.  So much learning, sensory play, other kids to watch and learn from, and the fact that every time bb comes here, she will learn and pick up something new.  The possibility of play is endless, and that’s the most important factor for learning.
• And tonight at dinnertime, bb did take in more noodles and chicken and food overall, so I was glad.  (I kept thinking today was the start of week 89, but it’s actually still week 88!)
• We expanded her knowledge base of her family’s Chinese names.  Now she not only know her own three-character Chinese name, her mom’s, her dad’s, her maternal grandma’s, but also she can recite her paternal grandparents’ names, her maternal grandfather’s, and also her two cousins!  (She’s still working on the latter two, but she’s getting there.)  Good memory!
• This week, grandma taught her how to go down the stairs by sliding on her butt.  Bb knows how to walk down the stairs on her own two feet and by holding the railings with our supervision, but this is a good skill to have too because if she ever finds herself alone on the stairs (for whatever reason), she will still know how to get down the stairs safely.
• DH says bb is so defiant because we teach her using a Montessori method.. letting her do anything she wants and it is all child-led. She’s independent and knows what she wants so she doesn’t always go with what we want.. We need to reason with her and coax her a lot for her to listen to us.