Mommy's Diary
Month 14 - Language and Interaction - Play tricks - Learning to catagorize - Forming the concept of personal property - A Confused but Smart Boy
March 6, 2000
Tiger now is an expert to use his voice and gesture to let his wants known. It's like he is demanding this and that all day long. He now initiates plays. After bath when I'm drying him, he will use the bath towel to play peek-n-boo with me. He squeals and yells at meals to indicates he wants to eat this and not that. One I gave him his soymilk with cup and he turned away his head. I asked, "You don't want it?" He said "Bu Yao!" (mean't don't want.) Then I show him the cheese stick and asked "Do you want this?" He said "Yao!" ("want"). He sometimes would wave his hands and kick his legs and breath heavily when he is real happy and exited about what I'm going to feed him. Yesterday I took him out to listen to the birds and watch the cars. He was very happy. He always pointed to the birds and turned to the cars and wanted to go to them. I asked him on our way back home, "Do you like to go outside?" He said "En Hng". I said, "Mommy will take you out often, ok?" and he said again, "En Hng." When we were almost home, I asked, "Tiger, where's home?" He pointed to our house. I was so happy and exited. It feels so good when he understands you and you understand him! Tiger's growing up so fast! He's leant so many things! I just couldn't believe it.Oh, one thing he enjoys to do, and I don't know from him who leaned, or he just invented himself, is to trick you. He would pretend to throw something off bed, and when you (also pretend) dash to catch it, he would still have it at his hands and he would laugh so hard. Tiger also likes to imitate. At dinner sometimes when I want to give him some meat but afraid that it would be too hard for him, I would chew them up a little then give it to him. Well Tiger has learned using his tongue to push out some hard stuff that he didn't want and pick them up from his lip and feed it to me. What's more, he would take his hand back when I open my mouth. And then he would laugh because he has tricked me. And I'll laugh too. How smart can a one-year-old be!
Tiger is getter stronger. He likes to carry heavy stuffs like pillows from one place to another and he would be very pround of himself. He also likes to jump on his play crib. He can jump more than a hundred times without stop. The bad part is that he is so mobil that he can seldom sit down and quitely do something such as read a book. He has a few favorit books that has doll, dogs, cars, etc. that he recognizes. But he often would flipped through the entire book so quick, only stop at the pages which he likes. I guess it's probably normal for his age. One morning I left him for a while and he yelled for me to be back. Well when I was back finally, he had already sit down and was reading his books. I was so happy to see him doing that but he immediately jumped up to hug me. Maybe I should leave him alone a little more then probably he will read more. Who knows.
It's real fun to see how children leans things. I used to wonder how did Tiger know what is a car. We only taught him by pointing to the cars and trucks on the street and the toy cars and trucks in his books. I finally found that he names every thing that has wheels a car. He even called a set of wheels at Walmart "Cheche" (car). He is also calling more and more things "wa wa" (doll or baby). He did it correctly in naming the baby pictures and toy dolls. He never call a real baby a "wa wa". But he once called a man's face at the Times magazine cover a "wa wa", which made me almost roll on the floor.
March 9, 2000
Spring is here! We had several days real nice days of 72 degrees. But Fan said, "Well the trees are not budding and flowers are not blooming yet." This morning on my may to work, I suddenly found little purple flowers spreading all over the green lawns. Tiger's personality is also blooming like a flower. He is such a happy baby. He loves to laugh, and to make other people laugh. He is smart. He is learning like a sponge absorbing water. He learned so many new words like beibei (cup), chocho (train), no no, he is even repeating the word "happy" when I say he is a happy boy although he may not know what it means. He also learned a new trick. When we ask him "Tiger, where is your tummy?" He would use his both hands to pat his tummy happily and exitingly. It seems to me that Tiger has starting to form the concept of personal property. He knows that all the toys in his toy box is his. I often told him "this is not yours, you can't play with it." I don't know if he understands but I hope this will help him to accept limits. Yesterday he went to the kitchen and picked up a potato. After carrying it in his hand and running from here to there for a while, he went to his toy box and put the potato in the box. It's like he has offically claimed that potato to be his. I just had to laugh.March 20, 2000
I can't believe it has been so long that I haven't written. I have been busy working on the Feburary 1999 Babies webpage. All of my mommy friends love that page. We have so many cute February babies!Tiger has been doing great. Now he can identify his tummy, hands, feet, and ears. It's real cute when he opens his hands or lift one foot to show you what they are. He also talks a lot. He has made up several of his own words. He says JuJu for birds, I guess that's after how birds sing. He says owow for bear, wow wow for dog, and baba for telephone. He can say no no, and he says no no when he goes to do something forbidden such as open a drawer, but he does it anyway. He says I know, but he doesn't know what he is talking about. We've been trying to teach him to say "how are you?" but all he can say is "are you?" He just learned to say "bye bye". Sometimes its kind of confusing to us which word is he saying. Like he says "baby", and "bei bei" for cups in Chinese, and "bei bei" for quilt in Chinese but they really sound similar. He says "zhou zhou" for rice porridge in Chinese, which is very similar to JuJu for birds. When he is in the high chair eating or when he points to a bird, we are pretty sure what he means. But sometimes we really don't know if he just saw a bird or he is hungry and wants to eat. It's just hilarious.
Another interesting thing is to watch how Tiger learns to catagorize things. Once he saw a picture of tomato, he quickly announced "ball!" then he quickly corrected himself, "apple!" When I get home from work, I would go to see mother-in-law and call her "Ma". Tiger would follow my step and look at grandma behind me and call her "Ma!" We always laugh and ask him who she is. Then he'll say "NaiNai" (grandma in chinese). He probably is wondering why everybody calls grandma "Ma" but he has to call her differently. Tiger can be rather adament at times. Once he saw a picture of a baby and pointed to him and said "wa wa" (for doll). I said "it's a baby". He glanced at me with condemnation and pointed to the picture again and said "wa wa!" I said "ok, it's wa wa."
It is really a fun stage in Tiger's development. He is such a confused but smart boy.
March 26, 2000
We took Tiger to the Shelter Garden today. We all sat on the grass and let Tiger run around. He was so happy. He went to see another baby and played with him side by side for a while, then went to see a young couple who are hugging together. Everybody laughed when Tiger just stood by the couple and stared at them.Tiger now calls everything that is round a ball. I don't know if I should correct him. I'm afraid to discourage him although he doesn't appear to be discouraged. I always tell him the right names but I guess it is too many new words for him.
Tiger has a flip page book and at one page, if you lift up a flower you will see a bee inside. Tiger loves to lift up the flower and he'll say bee when he sees it. But for about two weeks now, he wants to lift up other flowers too. He'll keep scratching a flower and just don't understand why this one doesn't open up. I tell him that this one is smaller and it cannot open yet. I don't know what else I can do to help this smart and confused young man.