Mommy's Diary

Year 2 - I'm a big boy now

April 17, 2001
We took Tiger to the zoo last Sunday. The bad thing in Columbia is we have to drive 2 hours if we want to go to the zoo or a musemn or a botanical garden. Sigh! But Tiger had a great time. He ran around and jumped and laughed and said bye-bye to every fish and people around him laughed. Tiger is now a very happy little boy. He will sing when he is playing. He can sing ABC, and XiaoSongShu (little pine tree) and part of many others. Last Friday at Children's House they made Easter Eggs. I guess every child can pick a color to color his egg and Tiger made an egg that looked like a SongHuaDan (dark salty egg). They also planted wheat seeds in a small clear plastic mug. Several days ago he wanted to look at our photo album and he still recognizes Grandma and Aunty, and he called dad Uncle first and then corrected himself GrandPa. He is really cute. And he is very grownup. He is happy, polite and nice behaviored. Once I pretend I was angry, and he said "MaMa BuYao Sheng Qi (don't be angry), please". If he accidently hit my head with his toy, he'll touch my head using his hand and say "Sorry!"

Tiger is more and more like a boy. He doesn't care much how the little green leaves are budding. He is more interested in chasing and watching a squerral. When we were out, he wanted to climb to the big rocks, walk on the curbs, and touch the springs.

April 27, 2001
I let Tiger try to wear underwear instead of Diapers yesterday after we pick him up from Children's House. 30 minutes later when we were playing outside on the lawn, he stood still with his peepee dripping into the lawn. How hard we laughed. I'm so glad he didn't chose to wet my carpet. Guess we still need to work on the potty training thing.

May 28, 2001
Tiger knows to pose for a picture now! We took Tiger to the memorial day air show yesterday. When I asked him to stand by an old car and let uncle Miao take a picture, he put his right hand on the car, and cross his right foot in front of his left foot. He did it so naturally we laughed so hard. Who taught him that? I was really surprised by him.

Tiger has started to talk more and more English in the day care. Sometimes he just says something all of a sudden and I only realize what he is saying after a second. One day I went in the closet to get my clothes and he shouted "Come out!" He can only say short phrases in English so far such as "watch out", "stop that", "look!" and "That's a car". However, he sings many English songs. Most of the time I have no idea what he is singing but I definetaly know that he is singing some words. It sounds like English, but in fact it may be a language that no earth life understands. There's one song I think I know every words he sings: "pull your shirt up, pull you shirt up, very high, to the sky, Tiger changes diaper, Tiger changes diaper, nice and dry, nice and dry." Very very nice.

August 28, 2001
I haven't write anything down for some time and now Tiger is really a big boy! He now knows to sought for differences in mom and dad's opinions. When he wanted a candy and I said no, he'll go ask daddy and come back to me "daddy says yes!" He is starting to create his own stories. He likes to sing also and many times he'll make up his own songs. Tiger loves his cars and trucks and he counts too although when asked how many cars he have he'll count from one to seven if he has four cars in front of him. Tiger also likes to play puzzels for 3-7yr olds although he is still better in touring them apart then to putting them together.

Tiger is completely potty trained since not long ago. He likes to stand up and pee (I think he feels he's a big boy that way) and he'll use his hand to help. Most of the time his peepee would end up everywhere with a little accidently goes into the potty.

Tiger is growing up to be a happy big boy. We are all very proud of him and he is very proud of himself too!

Septemper 12, 2001

When I woke up this morning thinking about yesterday's tragedy, I felt that it was a bad dream. But I know it is true. I couldn't keep my tears when I drove to work think about I don't know how many family spend their night missing their loved ones and worry the worst could happen to them. I still feel unbelievable about how this could happen. Last night I looked at Tiger and said "You are our future." I sincerely hope that they will never have to go through this kind of disaster in the future.

Tiger is still young but he can understand some of these. When I came home from work they were watching TV and Tiger told me "Bad people flied a plane and crashed the building." I feel good that he knows good and bad and he shows sympathy but not fear.

Septemper 27, 2001
I can't believe that Tiger has been entirely diaper free for a month now. I used to worry there will be another hard training to get him off diaper in the night. Well, he asked to wear underwear at night himself. The first night, he cried in the middle of night to wake us up and told us that he was wet. Ever since then, he is able to get up in the middle of the night and get us to take him to pee whenever he wants. Sometimes I can hear him wimping in his dream and see him pulling himself up before he is totally awake. It is so amazing. Guess he just doesn't like the feeling of wet underwear.

Last week I tried time out for Tiger for the first time too. He knows he is not suppose to draw in the carpet but he has done so for several times. Every time after he does it, he will tell me. Isn't it funny that he just doesn't hide the fact? It's like he just couldn't resist the temptation but he'll admit that he has done a bad thing. I have firmly scolded him but it seems that it's not working. So this time I put him on the sofa and said "You have to sit here until mommy put away all of your color pencils". He has 36 of them and get them together did cost me some time not to say I did not hurry. Secretly I was not sure if he will sit obediently because he is not physically restraint by anything. To my surprise he sits so well and quietly without a contest. When I was done, he put up a big smile and asked me: "I can play now?" I had to smile and kiss him and let him go after he promised that he won't do it again. Well he hasn't done it since then. I'll have wait for longer to see if this really works.

October 22, 2001
"Give me a book and I can do anything!"

Tiger has been potty trained but he only poops at his own potty back home. Well last week we went to San Diego to see his big brother in Marine boot camp. He didn't poop for two days. He got pretty uncomfortable because of that but he just didn't want to use an outside toilet. He would cry "I want to poop" in a resturant and when I led him to the restroom, he said "I just want to come to have a look. I don't really want to go potty." Then 5 minutes later he would cry again and said that he wanted to go home to potty. I was so worried! I tried to force him sit in the toilet and I tried to bribe him with candies and soda (!) but all of those didn't work. Well the second night when we were back at the hotel when he jumped off the toilet crying I suddenly thought off to offer him a book. And he was able to sit on the toilet when we read the book and guess what he went before we could finish the book. And the next time when we were out and he wanted to poop again, he wanted to go back to the hotel. I am so relieved! I never know that being a parent you could be happy or worried for just something as little as this and you feel you have made such a big accomplishment!

October 24, 2001
One thing that Tiger learns is to use his cry as a weapon to get what he wants. He used to only cry because he is really hurt but now he will cry when his request is not approved. He doesn't scream but he acts like he is really sad and makes you feel soft and guilty. He doesn't do this very often to me because I try very hard not to give in to his cry. But it seems to work pretty well with dh. I really think that Tiger is getter smarter. When he wants me to play with him and I was cleaning up the kitchen for example, he will not only come and drag me. He will get a towel for me to dry my hands. You can't imagine how moved I am when everytime I finish washing the dishes there is a little hand hoding a towel beside me. Of course he learns many new words, sentences, becomes very good at puzzles and starts to play with remote control cars and etc. He knows that mom has a baby in her tummy and that he is too small so he is not coming out yet. He loves to watch little babies. Once he went to see a baby and the baby's sister told him "that's my baby, not yours." He came back and said to me, pointing to his own tummy, "I have a baby. He's in my tummy."

December 10, 2001

Tiger is so grown up now. He often says and does things that surprise me. Whenever Fan turn on the TV to watch the news, he'll cheer "Taliban!" and sit in front the TV. He also comments "Bad people, we don't want them." He tells me the story of a fire truck. "There was a plane drove by bad people hit a building. The building was on fire. Then the fire truck came. The fire was out ... "

Recently a game he likes to play is to prepare his own luggage, i.e., a suitcase full of cars and trucks, then he would say byebye to everybody, "I'm going to fly the airplane to Marine to see Brother Shang." Then he would drag his suitcase all over the room, put it besides a high stool, and climb on the high stool and say "I'm a pilot. I'm flying the airplane." Once it was time for lunch, I took him to his highchair and said "It's time for pilots to have their lunch." He looked at me blamingly, and said, "I'm not a pilot." OOps! I was very taken aback. Then he added, "I'm only pretending to be a pilot."

Tiger likes to help me with chores very much. Everytime when I do his laundary, he would insist on putting his clothes on the dryer himself. One day I was in the restroom downstairs and noticed that there's no more toilet paper. So I asked him to go upstairs and ask daddy to give him some toilet paper and bring it down for mommy. He came back and handed me a roll of toilet paper, and then he gave me in his right hand another several pieces of toilet paper wrapped together. He actually took some toilet paper himself for me from a roll that was in a upstair restroom. I was so moved!

December 27, 2001
These few days Tiger has been waking up by himself. I lay his clothes besides him before I leave for work. Then when Fan woke up Tiger would be already dressed up himself and playing quietly in the living room. He even gets his socks from the shelf all by himself! What a good boy! Only sometimes he wears his pants front side back and his socks up side down, but it's ok. Tiger has been pretty happy these days. He's got lots of Christmas gifts including train and truck sets, electronic alphabet learner and play dough, jump ropes, etc. There's one set of wooden train and trucks that we told him is from Santa. He loves it so much he would not let anybody else touch it. He would tell you that reindeers drove the mail truck and then Santa drop in from the chimney and put his gift under the Christmas tree while he was sleeping under the tree.

Tiger is more emotionally mature also. He seems to understand more about emotions. One day we were watching Rudolf the red nose reindeer. He cried when Rudolf had to leave his playmates and when Rudolf left his friends in the island of misfits. We have watched this before. He seemed to be quite nervous when the snow monster comes but he never cried. And now he feels sad for Rudolf because he can understand the feeling of being alone and the feeling of departure from friends or things you love.

December 31, 2001
These few days Tiger has taken interest in his big teddy bear (He is almost as big as himself). Every time when we go out, he'll put on a snow coat for the bear, carry him to the car and let him sit besides him. And when we are back, he undresses him. He doesn't seem to mind all these troubles. I guess that's fun for him. Once he said to me, pointing to the bear, with a funny expression on his face, "poopoo! poopy diaper. He needs to change the diaper." So we pretend to change his diaper. I wonder where does all these come from. Is this his way of preparing the baby's coming?

Tiger is more and more conscious about his surrondings. We went to the mall on Saturday. When we went out, he stopped quite suddenly. When I asked him what's wrong, I found he was looking at a man who dressed up like an Arabian. He asked me, "He isn't a bad man?" I assured him that he was a good man and not everybody looks like an Arabian is a bad man. Tiger now have a very good sense of good and bad. He always asks about who is good and who is bad. When we read the book Snow white and seven dwarfs, he'll hit the old women on the page she tried to give Snow White a poisonous apple.

What's strange is, he refuses to take a picture with Santa. He knows Santa Clause and accepts him when talking about toys and gifts. But he would cry everytime we ask him to take a picture with Santa. He even refused to go to the mall when he knows we were expecting him to take pictures with Santa. It is so amazing when you think about what is inside his little head.

January 14, 2001
The Olympic torch was here! Tiger went to see it with his day care center friends. When I asked him what he saw, he said lots of cars and trucks. I just wanted to laugh. He didn't even see the flame. I guess all he cares about is cars and trucks. He loves the flags he got from the event and calls them "coke flag" since there is a CocaCola truck on the flag. He has no idea about Olympic or the torch.

Tiger has many friends in Children's House. When I ask him if he has a "girl friend", he says "Courmy". Fan told me that she is a girl that always has a running nose. Tiger is now forming the concept of "friend". He puts his cars that are similar sizes together and tells me that they are friends. He also starts to make his own story. Last night when we went to bed, he started to talk to himself. When I listened, he seemed to be telling a story about a bad man driving a car that crashed and being caught. He liked to listen to stories before bed but now he asks me to tell a story all the time. And he will ask "What happened next?" when I pauses.

Saturday Fan and I had a very stupid fight. I tried to get Tiger for a nap but he didn't want to. I was so tired and wanted to take a nap myself but Tiger kept bugging me. I asked him to go to play with Daddy who was watching TV at the time but he turned back in 30 second. I was quite mad and busted out of the bedroom door and went to the bathroom. Tiger cried and went in and hugged me. I then shouted to Fan "Couldn't you just watch him for a minute?" Fan was immediately mad too "Why didn't you just come and tell me if you want me to watch him?" It was so stupid we kept shouting to each other. I even cried "I'm mad because I'm tired. Why couldn't you try to comfort me in stead of making me madder?" Tiger cried again when he saw me cry. I hold him in my arms and kept kissing him and said I'm sorry. My anger went away when I saw Tiger. I felt so bad for behaving like this in front of Tiger. Afterwards Tiger asked me four times why I was sad. He said "I was sad too." When I asked why he said "because I missed mommy." I was so moved and felt so sorry. Tiger is such a sweet and affectionate boy. He is really grown up. He knows to understand others and to care for others and he trys to comfort others. I vow to not to have this kind of fight any more in the future.

January 15, 2001
Tiger has been fully potty trained for a long time now. But there is an interesting development these couple days. Last Saturday night he told me he wanted to pee but stopped on the way I guess there must be something that makes him really interested. When I turned on the bathroom light and went back to find him, he was still trying to get something out from a box. When he saw me he said: "Pants are wet." I laughed but tried not to make him feel embarrased. I just calmly told him that he shouldn't be so focused in playing and he should first go pee and come back to play. The next evening when I was reading a book to him I noticed him stood up and walked back and force like a big cat in his cave. I first wondered what's going on. Was he not interested in the book and wanted to do something else? Then I realized and asked him if he wanted to pee and he said yes. He was just trying to hold it because he wanted to finish the book. This is so interesting to me. It's like he's now having his priorities and clearly physical need is not his first priority like before.