...and then there were two!

18 months old

At 18 months, his personality, likes, dislikes, abilities and quirks are quite obvious, and I think I have a fairly good idea what kind of person he is.

Personality

• Short-tempered : He flys off the handle when he doesn't get what he wants. (alamak)
  
• Friendly : Unless he's just woken up from a nap or due for one, he can be very friendly with people. He'll smile and wave at strangers and if he knows you a bit better, he'll interact and play with you.
• Independent : He doesn't need us around all the time. At playgroups, he's usually off playing on his own or with other kids.
• Gung Ho : He's game to try anything, even a dark and narrow tunnel at the Julia Gabriel playground.
  
• Observant : He can spot things that we can't! (like the narrow & dark tunnel which was under a Little Tykes pirate ship)

Conclusion : If there's an Amazing Race for toddlers, DN will join it. He'll eat grubs and leap off playground slides, but if he doesn't win, you'd better siam! (leave quickly to escape from the exploding toddler and his tantrum)

Likes

• Eating : DN really likes eating. Even after his own dinner, he'll want to join us at the dinner table and eat, instead of play with his toys. During the day, we often see him dragging his high chair to the dining table and pointing at us to put him in it.
  
• Grapes & Kueh Belanda : He will give up his parents for these.
  
• Bathtime Peekaboo : One of his 2 favourite books now. He likes lifting the flaps and discovering the duck, penguin, fish etc. I like this book too because it's very baby friendly - board book, huge flaps, huge pictures & few words.
  
• Goodnight Moon : His other favourite. For the longest time, he couldn't sit through 4 pages of this book. Now, he'll sit and listen from beginning to end. These are the only 2 books he'll read in their entirety.
• Slides : Short ones, tall ones, straight ones, curly ones.
  

Conclusion : When he's older, I can just see all three of us hanging out at a cafe having tea/coffee/hot chocolate and cake and reading books. Lovely! I can't wait!

Dislikes

• Wiping his face : He likes washing his hands with soap, but hates us wiping his face. Go figure.
• Finger Paints : Strangely, although he doesn't like the feel of paint on his hands, he has no qualms smearing my carefully-cooked-on-the-stove-for-2-hours porridge on the table.
• Sitting in the stroller : I'm like, "Do you know how much this monster stroller cost us? SIT DOWN!"
• Sleeping through the night : -_-
• Bittergourd : Can't blame the guy, but trust the chinese to eat, and like, this awful vegetable.

Conclusion : A nightmare for him would be being chased by a giant face towel.

Abilities

• Signing : He's building up his signing vocabulary and recently added the signs for - carrot, umbrella, stand up (he made this one up himself), grumpy, grapes and vegetable. He's also more precise with his signs now. When signing 'more', he now uses his fingertips instead of his knuckles.
• Language (1) : He's definitely physically dominant and not linguistically dominant. He can only say "mama", "mum-mum" and "up", but he understands 95% of what we say. Like if he overhears us talking about going home, he'll go get his shoes and start waving bye to everyone, even though we're still sitting on the couch. He's been doing this since he was about 14 months old.
  
• Language (2 ) : He understands 95% of what we say, in both English and Mandarin. Woah nelly. I think his understanding of Mandarin is better than mine.
• Physical Development : He started walking at 12 months and it's been a whirlwind journey since. It wasn't long before he started running (13 mths) and walking backwards (15 mths). He cannot sit still. I think that's why he's not fat even though he eats so much.
  

Conclusion : In primary school, his whole world will crash when it's raining and he cannot have PE.

Quirks

• Eating medicine : He eats his paracetamol medicine and shows us the 'good' sign! And he'll open his mouth and receive other medicine willingly. Amazing. I love it!
• Fish Lover : He likes fishes so much that whenever he hears running water, or sees a pond, he'll run over to see if there are fishes in it. One of the first few signs he learnt was 'fish'.
  
• Guttural Sounds : None of us can do it, but DN can make this strange guttural sound from deep inside his throat. He started doing this just before he turned one, whenever he saw a dog or cat (like a growl!). Now he also makes this sound when we ask him to call 'gong gong' or 'gu gu'. It really does sound like it, haha.
  
• Smiling : At about 14 months, DN finally understood the concept of "smiling for the camera". Because he's seen me shove my phone-camera in his face so often, he started smiling as he held my phone-camera and pointed it at his face. He also accomodates when we bark at him to "smile", and he gives us his trademark squinted-eyes-scrunched-up-nose smile.
  

Conclusion : Strange taste buds? Vain pot?


Feb 2007


Feb 2008