Playing with her new wooden blocks

24 months, 1 week old:

• September 28:  The week started with bb battling off her first cold.  We continued to give her cold medicine and even ran out of the first battle and had to get another one.  The second one we got was actually individual portable ones which I didn’t really prefer as much.  Bb is so willing to take the medicine and even reminded us sometimes that it was time for “teem teem”.  She’s so good at drinking the medicine from the small cup and then letting us fill it up with water to drink the rest of it.  Her cold thankfully subsided and she didn’t have any runny nose anymore (a little bit of cough left) but she’s well on the mend.
• I was impressed that even though she had a cough in the last two days, she would cough in her sleep but then continue sleeping.  So glad that she didn’t wake up from the coughing because it takes so much effort to lull her back to sleep again…
• It’s getting cold in the house so we opened up the larger size soft-sole shoes that her paternal grandma got for her.  Bb likes wearing them.  When we return back home and her socks are off, bb says “the floor is cold” (yau di dong dong day) and then we help her put her “indoor shoes” on.
• Bb likes rearranging the items in the pantry.  And by that, I mean taking a lot of the items out and then to her little kitchen.  She took out all of the sardine cans and put them in her play area.
•  She also discovered our basket of walnuts that we had kept there.  She had so much fun taking them out one by one and putting them into one of her toy pots and pans.  It’s the perfect shape and play thing for her too.  She kept handing them to me and it was like magic how many kept appearing.
• It’s a little annoying when I have to go to the toilet and then bb follows me.  It’s not that she follows me but that she stays inside the washroom then and likes to rip up the toilet paper and throw into the toilet.  It makes me hesitant to leave her to go to the toilet because she ends up following me and it takes so long and so much coaxing to get her out of the washroom.  But it’s not good for me just to hold my pee or drink less water so I have to go less.  Hopefully bb grows out of this phase soon.  Gone are the days when she used to wait patiently at the stairs for me to finish my business and then resume playing.  Now that she can walk up and down the stairs by herself, she doesn’t need to wait for us anymore and just goes where she wants.
• This week, she’s been putting the stuffed animal turtle toy into the high chair and bringing him a whole boatload of food.  It’s quite funny actually.
• Some days, bb eats really well at mealtime.  She uses her fork or spoon and eats by herself.  But then sometimes she doesn’t want to sit by herself and wants to sit on our laps to eat.  I still find that the more she eats at dinnertime, the better she sleeps at night.  We have had a few nights where she sleeps through the night because of eating well at dinnertime.  The hard part is for her to want to eat though!
• Not sure if I mentioned this before, but one thing that’s annoying is that when bb is chewing something but then she sees us eating something new, she spits out whatever’s in her mouth and then wants to try the new food.  I would prefer if she finishes and swallows what’s already in her mouth first.  It’s wasteful!
• We finally found time to open one of her birthday gifts this week which was something on our (my) wishlist for her — wooden blocks!  I chose the Melissa & Doug brand of 100 coloured blocks even though my actual wishlist was the natural coloured ones, but they cost so much more — about $100 on Amazon and I didn’t want to impose that on the gift-giver.  Instead, this $20-ish set will do for now.  Bb was excited to open the present and play with it.  I was really impressed that once the blocks were out, she immediately knew to stack them and put them together.  However, she doesn’t know how to “play” with them like building or making structures yet.  That will come in time… (Block play is open-ended play, really important for kids to foster imagination and creativity, math skills, etc.)
• She is on a phase where she asks “who bought this” to almost every single thing we have.  She likes to identify and remember who gave her what.  So this block set, she knows it’s from a certain friend “so-fi-a jei jei”.
• Unfortunately this week, I had to go to the hospital to be monitored for a few hours because my friend’s car got rear-ended and I was in the passenger seat.  So scary what potentially could have happened.  People need to pay attention when they’re driving and not accidentally hit the gas pedal instead of the brakes at a red light.
• Bb had her two-year-old wellness check this week!  She tips the scales at 11.6 kg (25.5 lbs) and 88 cm tall, making her continue being at 50 percentile.    The pediatrician asked a few questions, all of which were affirmative and demonstrated that she was developing normally.  Questions were:  Is she stringing words together, like two at a time?  Heck yes!  She talks so much at home and can speak in full sentences and ask full questions now.  Does she like putting items inside of a jar or bottle?  Yes!  Does she play make-believe with her toys?  Yes!  Can she walk up and down the stairs?  Yes!  She does it even when we are not there with her.  So glad she can do it safely by herself although we are always scared of her accidentally tumbling down the stairs if she isn’t careful…  Can she follow verbal instructions?  Yes!  Can she throw a ball or kick a ball?  Yes!
• The ped answered one of my questions I had before I even had to ask.  He said that now that she’s two years old, she doesn’t have to drink 3.25% milk anymore.  She can downgrade to 2% milk and this is what she will be drinking from now until she’s 18 years old.  The recommended quantity her day is 500 mL.  This was perfect because we calculated her daily milk consumption to be about 450 to 600 mL a day and I was actually afraid that she was drinking too much milk too.  So glad that we have the answer to this all-important question.
• Also, bb showed “skepticism” at the doctor when he did his physical exam of her “shining a light on her eyes”, checking her diaper area, listening to her chest and back.  She didn’t cry or shy away.
• The ped asked how potty training is going and I replied saying that we haven’t officially started yet but that she does recognize when her diaper is full or when she’s had a bowel movement (she says it’s stinky, for example).  Bb is also starting to be able to pull her pants up by herself which shows that her arm muscles are strong enough to be physically able to do that.  That’s another sign that potty training is on the near horizon.  He said that she will be able to do it on her own time, which is what I think too.
• I’m surprised he didn’t ask about her eating habits or poop or pee.  I guess as long as she’s growing healthily, those things are a given.  Plus, even if we tell him she doesn’t eat that well, she is showing growth in her weight so it’s not like she’s not eating because she is growing lol.
• (The nurse actually measured her weight and height incorrectly.  I’m so glad that the ped re-did it to confirm the correct numbers.)
• Bb continues to love riding in shopping carts and visiting the supermarket with us.  We had our first family of three grocery experience actually.  Usually we don’t visit all together like this.
• Bb actually puts her hand on my belly to feel the baby too.  She says “dou dou tat tat” (“little bean is kicking”) and reaches out to feel my belly when I do too.  It’s really cute, but does she actually understand that there’s a baby growing inside of there?  She also continues to say the baby is eating pizza in there as well as named “Kelvin” but is a girl when I ask her what the gender is.  She also “reserves” a spot for the baby in her bathtub and on the shopping cart when she sits there.  I wonder how much she actually understands though… and half the time she also says she doesn’t want to be a big sister and doesn’t want a sibling and also “doesn’t allow” the baby to do many things either.  She never verbally allows us to do things anyway lol.
• I’m surprised that she actually likes the cheese crisp snacks that we got from Costco recently.  They’re so salty, even for my taste buds!  They’re real baked pieces of cheese.  It’s good that it’s actually real cheese though.
• She has been skipping her naps this past week because she either doesn’t want to head upstairs during naptime or no one has been able to successfully put her to nap.  She makes through the day but is so tired after dinner that she is stumbling.  It’s not a good combination at dinnertime when she is both hungry and very sleepy.  How do we get her naps back?  She is only two and shouldn’t be skipping her naps entirely yet!  (She did pass out in the car when DH tried taking her to the library though, but that was it.)
• Speaking of library, we visited the Aaiinin library again today and played in the kids’ area.  This time, there were way more kids there.  They were all older than her and mostly boys.  Bb didn’t show that she was uncomfortable at all this time.  She walked in and seemed familiar with the place already.  She took to picking up and playing with the toys right away even though there were other kids there too.
• It’s such a hard spot to be in when you have to lecture or scold other kids.  There was an older boy there (maybe 7 or 8 years old) who was clearly hogging all of the toy cars.  Bb had two in her hand and he had the audacity to take them from her.  I asked him “Did you ask her if you could take those from her?” He shook his head no.  I told him to ask before taking.  He did return the cars to bb but then in a swift move also traded out one of the cars that bb had for one of the ones he already had.  What the heck?  DH and I both observing this boy play and he clearly had no respect for authority.  His mom (who moved away from where he was to sit next to the younger daughter) couldn’t even get him to stop throwing the lego blocks at another boy.  The mom was also on her phone the entire time.  The boy displayed a lot of anger and aggression from the way he was playing with the toys… he was throwing lego blocks right at the toy cars for no reason at all.  How do you even parent a child who is not yours?  It’s not my job, but when it affects my kid’s play, I have to speak up.  Bb knew not to give her toys away willingly after that, but only because we were there to protect her.
• The other time we were at the Science Centre, there were also two boys who took items from bb without asking.  Bb remembers that incident to this day and sometimes recalls “gor gor lor jor lei wun gwui” (older boy took my toys away).  Why is it mostly boys who think this is okay?  Where are the parents?  Why aren’t their parents teaching them basic manners?!
• Anyway, the visit to the library was great for bb to play with toys that she doesn’t have at home:  Toy trucks and cars and plastic animals.  Bb was interested in stuffing the plastic animals into the toy vehicles.  Namely, the plastic yellow ducky into the green recycling truck.
• When bb asked to sit down, we knew she was tired and it was time to leave.  She didn’t put up a fight when it came time to leaving.
• This week, taught bb that when something is showing steam, it is hot so we can’t eat it yet.  Then she proceeds to blow at it dramatically with lots of spit lol.
• This week during a mid-day visit to the park, bb learned how to walk holding my hand on the narrow bench.  She showed some fear and hesitation at first but then after the third time walking on it, she was much faster and more confident.