Growing phase in year 2008

Time flies really fast, Ethan already turned into 3 years old last month. Mummy thought it should be recorded down his growing phase before the new year. (At least when he is older that time, he will look back at his growing up milestones). Well, the big difference between this year and last year was that we are in Shanghai to celebrate the new year. Ethan had a chance to experience the 4 seasons and went to international school to study.

Summaries of 2008:
Toys
- This year the toys mostly based on the theme of transportation. We bought different type of transportation toys for him. In this year, he also experienced a few new transportation vehicles by himself like airplane, subway, tram car etc. If compared with the last year's toys, this year is way way less. We did buy a few new puzzles for him but his interest was not so great.

Books
- More books for this year as we have relocated to Shanghai end of May and mummy found out that the books here are extremely cheap compared to Malaysia. Sure will quickly grasped this opportunity and buy more books for him. This year more Chinese and bilingual books. Still headache was that he does not really like the Chinese books, may it is too difficult for him?
- Find a way to save the books cost, borrowed books from school library. It did save the parents a lump sum of money.

Clothes
- Did a lot of shopping for Ethan especially for the winter clothing. Daddy said Ethan was the most trendy and fashionable in our house. All his winter clothes are brand new unless his parents.

Sick and injection
- No injection for this year
- Sick frequently during Oct and Nov month. These two months were the peak period for Ethan to visit the hospital. He had his first ear infection and terrible rashes since birth. All due to the changing seasons and also he was attending the school. Why we say that attending the school was the main cause? We did observe that when we traveled that time. During the super hot summer time, we were freaked of Ethan getting sick because we traveled a lot under the hot sun. But he did escape from attack by the virus. And the super cool winter, we also traveled and he was also free of sickness. The period was before he start attending the school and also during the school holiday. To prevent and protect Ethan against the virus, we fed him with manuka honey, Scott liver oil, pureen vitamin supplement. Hope that these things can really help.

Motor Skills
Leg/Foots
a) Surely the motor skill has improved compared with last year. This year he dare to jump, hop and even ran faster
b) Not only can ride the bicycle(still on 4 wheels) but also can master the scooter.
c) Dance whenever listen to the music. Sometimes mummy will ask him to shake his hip, the way he does it really funny.

Hand/Fingers
- Coloring skill still at the beginning stage. He doesn't really like to color, sometimes ask him to color, he just like to color the object in one line or one spot. The school didn't really start to ask them to color. The school has them for free style coloring on the paper.
- He like to stamp things. The school did let them chop/stamp with the sponge. The way he used the chop is much better after he attended the school.
- Writing skills. Not yet, he only know how to write the "1' and sometime '7'.
- Using the scissor. Sometime can cut but sometime cannot. Not to blame his skills, it is the scissor problem as it is made of plastic and not steel so not that sharp. Dare not let his use the steel scissor because afraid he will accidentally hurt himself.
- Know how to use his little finger to button and unbutton his shirt. Zip the clothes, etc.
- Know how to wear and take off the T-shirt and pants. Shoes and socks are also not a problem for him. He can do all the things by himself without his parents help.
- His little finger also know how to press and play his favorite DVD and radio.
- Lately his hobby is playing with his mother's laptop. Using the mouse to click here and there. He knows how to open and play the music.
- The busy finger did call our driver when he gets to play with our hand phone.

Vocal skill
- More chatter box right now compared with last year. Can form a simple sentence.
- Before we were in Shanghai, he normally speaks in English but after we arrived here few months later, he started to speak in mandarin.
- One problem for Ethan is he rarely respond to outsider when they are asking him. Whenever outsider asked and talked to him, he only stares at that people. This situation is improving in the school compared with the first few months when he was in the school. When we have the teacher and parent interview back in Oct, the teacher only realized that Ethan can talk a lot when he is with his parents.

Reading skill
- He was keen to learn to read. The pronunciation is clear right now compared to the start of the year.
- Since mummy has borrowed books from library everyday, it did help him to practise his reading skills. He likes to read the books with mummy. Mummy did change the style of reading the story books to him. When reading the pages, mummy will ask him some questions and ask him to tell mummy what he has observed from the page. Beginning of year and last year, mummy's style was only read what were the words in the book to him and did not interact and get participation from him. Changing the style really helps him to better understand and mummy also knows from his stand point what he observed from the books.Nowadays before mummy read the books to him, mummy will do some preparation like go to website to check the pronunciation of the words and the meaning that mummy is not sure. Last time mummy simply "tembak' the pronunciation and it maybe incorrect. If mummy can correct mummy's bad habit then Ethan can learn the correct thing.
-Can only read few Mandarin words.
- Loves number. We always say that from Ethan's point of view, everything is number to him. Everything he can count.
- Now can read the time in digital form.

Food
- This year Ethan has a lot of different style of food especially after we arrived in Shanghai.
- Changed his taste. Last time, he didn't like the raisin. He will spit it out from his mouth but right now, it is one of his favorite food. He will request from us by saying, "I want raisin". His face looks happy when we fulfilled his needs.
- He loves the soya milk and we have bought the machine to blend and cook the bean.
- More Japanese food this year. Now whenever we walked by Carrefour food stall, he will point to stall and says ' I want Takoyaki". He cannot resist the attraction of this food. Hard time for us when we pass by that way.
- Not yet let him to take sweets. Always wanted him to eat less sugar and salted food.

Favorite Character
- Is "Barney" the purple dinosaur. Actually, he only started to love Barney after moving to Shanghai. It was a month that he craved for it but lately not the case. Sometimes when mummy is busy cooking and asks whether he wants to watch the barney or not, he will refuse and he would rather play with his toys, mummy pc and etc.
- Add one more is Noddy, this was accidentally introduced to him. Mother bought him the story book and the book came in with the VCDs. That was a time he loves this character more than Barney. Now maybe because mummy had kept the whole VCD on the shelf and he also forget about it.
-Mother didn't buy other characters' DVD for him. Other characters he knows is told by his parents, like mickey mouse, doreamon, elmo(the book borrowed from library) and etc. We didn't buy any DVD other than Barney for him in China even though it is cheap. Maybe can consider...???

More independent and so bossy matters
- When we want to pay the money and/or receive money, he is the one who want to hold the money
- He will press the password and uses the key to open the door
- He will press the microwave, on and off the TV/ radio. Toast the bread.
- Will pull on his pants when want to pee(summer time) but not for winter time because too many thick layer of pants
- There was one time, he made himself the milk in his milk bottle
- Too many independent stuffs

Overall, he is a happy growing kid.