Mommy's Diary

Month 12 - Running and dancing - Words, words and more words - Won't wear shoes

January 9, 2000

I have been busy lately so did not have time to write diary. Tiger has been busy too. He has learned so much. He now actually runs! When you ask him, "Can you dance for us?" He would go to the stereo, press the play button, then dance to the music. He knows two dances. One is he taps his feet like he is doing tic tap dancing. Another he would stand there and move his butt up and down with rhyme. Sometimes, he sits on the floor and kicks his legs too.

Tiger has also learned many new words. He now knows to say "YumYum" when he wants to eat. He calls his grandma "NaNa". He can say car in Chinese ("Che"). When you ask him, "How does puppy talk?" He says "wow wow! wow wow!" He also knows the Chinese name for the big Tiger in the living room: "Hu". There are other words that he likes to repeat but I haven't figure out what they mean yet.

Yesterday morning we took Tiger to a Parents as Teachers School activity. We had a music and dance session. Tiger was thrilled. He was probably the youngest among the walkers. He did not do much according to the instructors, but he walked around and performed his own dancing. He also walked to several mothers and babies to say hi. He liked to walk to somebody but when they noticed him and tried to talk to him he would remain serious without giving back a word, a gesture or even a smile. I've been trying to get him to wave to people. Well, this morning in the mall, he waved to the girl at Subway. I'm a happy camper.

Tiger has also made great progress in table food. Ever since grandma came, we have been trying to give him more table food little by little. Now he can eat rice porridge with ground vegi and pork. I think before long he would be eating whatever we eat. Also, he has weaned himself from bottles. He drinks water, diluted juice and my expressed milk from his cup. He doesn't like the sippy cup cover. He prefers to drink with the cover off. He actually tries to open the cup cover using his bottom teeth like what he does with other covers. He is always successful with other stuff but thank god so far he can't open the sippy cup cover yet.

January 10, 2000

Tiger is such a adorable baby. When mommy or daddy walk into the room, he would stand up and run to us and circle his hands around our legs. You feel that he loves you so much! Sometimes when I walk by him without stopping to talk to him, he would cry and I just couldn't help to turn around to hug him.

Since the day he was sick and we took him to our bed, Tiger's sleeping had become worse. He woke up more and was not very easy to go back to sleep. Last night, however, he slept beautifully. I think he is starting to go back to his good self. I have been trying to be consistent in the timing and routine for his bedtime. I feel that it all paid off. This morning Tiger was very happy. When I left for work and waved bye-bye to him, he smiled. I guess this is because he understand what is going on and he loves to be involved in a communication which he understands. He knows that mommy is going to work and she will return.

It seems to me that Tiger has become so mature! He likes to play with us. Sometimes he runs and laughs when I pretend to chase him. He laughs so much when I play peekaboo behind a pillow or a sheet with him. He loves to get his hand behind the pillow to touch me without seeing me. He would laugh out loudly when his hand find me. He also likes to pick up something that he thinks really interesting and walk to each room to show it to everybody. When you try to get it from him, he hides his hands behind him as I did when he tried to get something from me that I didn't want him to have. At meal time, I sometimes give him some rice criespies for him to feed himself and I sometimes feed him with them. Well, now he knows to pick up a rice criespy and feed it to me. How pround I was for my good baby!

I'm also glad to see that he is very persistent in his efforts. I borrowed a set of stacking cups for him and he can just sit there playing with it for a long time. He'll get each cup out and drop it beside him. Then I put them together again and he'll start the entire process again. He repeats this so patiently sometimes I secretly wonder, "won't he become bored?" Well, appearantly he hasn't and I try to pretend I'm as enthusiastic as he is. Tiger has a very big plastic soda cup that we gave him to play. Last night he opened the cup cover using his teeth and put one of his stacking rings inside it. Then he tried to reach it and get it out. It was such a big cup that his arms are barely long enough to reach the ring. I helped him to hold the cup still so that he can get the ring out. However, he dropped it into the cup again the minute he got it out. Then he tried to reach it and get it out the second time without my help. Then the third time. I realized that he was simply repeating this again and again. I think it was entriguing to him because it was a task with a little difficulty. Tiger loves chanllenges. This morning, the minute he sat on his playmat, he picked up the cup and the ring and started again. Wow! I was really impressed. He just wants perfection!

January 10, 2000

I love to see Tiger pretending to make phone calls. He loves to watch us when we talk on the phone and we give him plenty of opportunity to talk too when we call grandpa and aunts. He has three or four different toy phones and a real cordless phone that is broken. But the one he loves the most is a real phone that I let him to play with (about one minute a time then I let him say byebye and hang up). Now he will put the phone (real, toy, or imagined) behind his ears and says "Huh?" It is really funny to see him doing that.

January 17, 2000

I volunteered to design the February 1999 Babies website. So I don't have much time to write my diary. But Tiger has been growing without stop. He now dances and sings. It's so funny when he hmms. He can say pears in Chinese ("Lee"). He has been able to get off bed by turning around face the bed and slip off.

On Sunday I finally get him to wear shoes. We bought a pair of soft slippers from Walmart. As usual, once we tried it on him, he immediately sat down and whined. He used both of his hands to hold on his feet, as if something terrible happened to them. He couldn't move, like the feet did not belong to him any more. He even fell backward on the back of his head because he curved up like a ball. Fan tried to get him up to stand but he kept to curve up his legs and stayed like a ball. He finally calmed down on my shoulder. He used to like to stand inside the shopping cart. So I tried to put him there but he immediately fell down and started to hold and look at his feet. So we tried to distract him by offering some stuff to him. My final success is a small peach. He shift his attention to the peach and played with it in his hand for a while before he bit on it. I quickly grabbed it and bit off its skin and bit off a small piece and fed it to him before he start to whine again. He liked it so much he completely forgot about his shoes. He stood up and even walked to me when I hold a small piece of peach on my hand. I felt a little embarrased about eating a peach that we haven't paid for. But the thrill that we finally got him stand on shoes has far overwelmed.

January 19, 2000

This is so cute! When you ask Tiger "What do you do when you poop?" He would make a face and act like he is stranging to poop, exactly like what he does when he poops. I simply love it!

He's doing better with shoes. He still cries when we first put them on and he would clinge on you for a long time. But he now forgets about it sooner and walks around with them ok.

January 21, 2000

I remember that Tiger had forgot how to play "How big is Tiger". When we ask this question, he used to raise his hands and we all clapped hands to cheer for him. So later he simply clapped hands when we asked this question. He didn't really know what did it mean. Now Tiger is grown up and can understand lots of things. This morning I asked him, "Tiger, how big are you?" and I raised my hands to promote that he should do this. When he imitated me and raised his hands, I said "Wow, this big!" and he understood! Now if I ask him this questions again, he spread his arms out casually, knowing that he is showing me that he is very big.

January 26, 2000

Tiger used to like to open all kinds of containers, boxes and drawers, and throw everything out. Well, now he still does that. But he has also learned to put something back in. He doesn't have a clear idea about size yet. Once he tries to put a bigger stacking cup into a smaller one. Now we have started finding things in places that they should not have been.

Tiger's constipation problem has been better. He has been pooping once everyday for several days now. It all starts with the peach I gave him in order to coax him into wearing shoes. He hadn't had much raw fruits before because we were afaid of him choking. Now we give him at least one apple or peach every day.

February 1, 2000

Tiger is getting smarter and naughtier. He knows where we hide the remote controls and is always trying to get them. He used to like to chew on slippers and we would grab the slippers away from him. Now he would deliberately come to me with two slippers in his hands then run away laughing when I pretend to chase him. It's like a game between us. At least he won't chew on the slippers now. I don't know if it is bad that we turn it into a game. I hope it won't teach him to do bad things just for fun.

He likes to climb. Climb to the sofa, table, stairs... He can climb off bed, and almost can climb down staires by himself. Once he uttered a short cry and I was busy at something else. Half a minute later he uttered another short cry. When I went to see what was going on, he was hanging on the edge of the endtable in the kitchen using his two hands and couldn't get down. I could't believe it! He could have hurt himself in any minute! Not that he has not hurt himself many time already. Sigh!

February 4, 2000

Tiger becomes quite talktive now. Yesterday we went to St. Louis and he was shouting "Mama" "Baba" and "NaiNai" for the entire trip. He repeats all the words that he learned and some other words too. This morning, when he was about to wake up, with his eyes closed, he murmured "Ba-by Bo-p, bujibujibujibuji ...". It was hilarious. He also waved byebye after he fell to sleep last night.

I think Tiger now has a pretty good understanding about colors. He didn't know the name of the colors, but he often pick two objects with the same color to play from all of his toys. He has a set of stacking cups. They are red, yellow and blue. At first he would take out the cups from one another and then he would always pick up the blue ones to bang with each other and take them to show somebody else. I'm thinking that blue is his favorite color because he also likes to play with other blue toys. Recently he would also pick up two yellow cups or two red cups to play with.

Tomorrow is Tiger's one year birthday. I can't believe he is one already. This year went by so fast! And Tiger has grown up to be such a good boy!