Randall received a greeting card from his BFF, Conor Mack, on which there was a picture of Conor getting his first haircut. Randall was keen to note that Conor had just cried before the picture was taken, so he commented, “Conor had a haircut. He cried. He does not like haircut”.
“Guess no kid likes haircuts.” I replied, “Does Randall like haircuts?”
“Yes.”
“Why does Randall like haircuts?”
“[Because] I need a lollipop.”
About two weeks ago, Randall showed us his finger counting with “Five Little Monkeys” in countdown order for the first time. It was not until then that we realized that he finally understood the meaning of those numbers while he had learnt to verbally count and recognize their written forms a year before. Since then, he’s been using numbers a lot in his conversations (100% correct up to 3, can sometimes figure out 4 and 5) although he does not understand the purpose of one-to-one counting yet.
We went to Oakland Zoo again on the morning of Christmas Eve. We were lucky to see some big animals awake and active despite the cold weather. Randall said that he saw “three elephants,” and he watched one of them getting food from a bucket hanging down from a tree.
Victorian gardens revisited this weekend. Randall had grown a little taller and now qualified for those “bigger” rides. After trying almost everything out, he started to switch between his two favorites: the Mini Mouse, a beginner roller coaster, and the Aeromax, a crop duster ride. In the end it became just one favorite: the Aeromax. Randall jumped back and forth from front row to back row between each landing and takeoff. Wish we had kept a count, but he must have completed at least ten flights before I finally held him up to make him leave. Needless to say the little one got so upset. He kept pointing at the facility and said he wanted to get back onto the “airplane” again. After reaching an agreement with daddy and mummy that this would be the real last time and we should be off home right afterwards, Randall rushed off to his plane 7 and enjoyed one last ride in the front seat.
Nap time monologue: “Eek!!! (shout out loud). No screaming. No more. Don’t do that. Sleep.” Lately he’s been trying to challenge me quite a lot, by doing what he knows he is not allowed to and waiting to see my response. Left alone in his crib, he is now playing mom…
Randall stopped at this page for a few seconds and then pointed to the “potty” image in the upper right corner, asking “where is he?”. That was a pretty good question, I said to myself.
This is now what Randall starts his morning and ends his day with: the vehicle puzzles, or as he calls it, “puzzle car”. He would cheerfully go to bed only if he has finished all 4 puzzles in the box, in a fixed sequence every time, of race car, school bus, train, and fire truck. I didn’t expect him to be ready for this 12-piece set at this time yet, for he couldn’t even do the 8-piece farm puzzle. And indeed in the beginning, he almost had no clue of what pieces match and what don’t. But he is SO obsessed with cars. Unlike with the old farm puzzles which I could hardly get him interested in, he asked us to sit down with him once or twice a day to work on the vehicle puzzle together. Now, after one week’s time, he has become pretty good at it. He can put them together all on his own and put them back in separate compartments. He can even figure out which pieces belong to which puzzle.
This reminds me of how I once struggled with the choice of toys. But in the end I just gave up the idea of trying to catch him up with the so-called average skills of his age. He didn’t appear very interested in drawing (esp. on paper). Nor was he verbal. “Forget about it! Just spoil him”, I decided. And by saying “spoil him”, I meant getting him toys he would most likely be interested in and saving myself from worrying about the development chart all the time. Now our apartment has become more like a garage, parked with toy vehicles of all sorts and all sizes. Besides Randall has an entire storage box dedicated to his train tracks. And like many other boys of his age, he just spends a whole of lot time doing nothing but line up or “drive” these vehicles. But now I see my way of “spoiling him” seems to have worked out. He has found something interesting for himself and keeps working on it till he gets there. Still, of course, I am always ready to help him explore new areas and new possibilities, like I get him new books every so often, check out toddler swimming classes, and give him a set of chalks in addition to the crayons.
Except for a couple of routines like saying goodbye or good night, Randall doesn’t give out kisses for free. And you’ll just get a nasty face and be pushed away if you ask for it at a bad time. “I’ll tell you something that can get you a nice kiss from him.” I said to daddy this evening, handing him Randall’s bottle. Dubious at first, daddy tried it out by saying “You want the milk? Give me a kiss first.” We both burst into laughter when Randall did exactly what I had expected.
We are approaching the end of the school year. Here comes the spring picnic, while I can still recall the first school picnic that happened last fall. Back then Randall just sat there eating almost the whole time. His teacher, Veronica, told us that he had a favorite girl in the classroom. Right now we are watching him handing out a ball to this girl, trying to trade it for the one in her hand. Throughout the whole school year, we’ve seen him hugging, kissing or holding hands with other kids. He doesn’t talk very well yet, but he is definitely communicating.
Instead of waiting to be reminded by daddy’s move, Randall initiated the little “goodbye ritual” himself this morning and asked daddy to follow his sweet action of kissing mummy’s lips.
Ran Ran 