Last day of 2007

Time flies very fast. Today is the last day of the year 2007. So fast that our son is already 25 months old. Besides this we also stayed at our lovely house for 8 year.

This evening Ethan requested to wear his sport shoes to the car porch. After he wore it, he ran here and there in the car porch. He seems like he knows that the shoe was suitable for him to run. Normally when he wears the normal shoe, he will not run so often. He sweats a lot and the two cheeks are reddish. Later mummy let him ride his tricycle. The place was small as one of daddy's car was inside the car porch. But Ethan still had fun. He exercised a lot so he can eat a lot at dinner.

Oh! Wheel hit the grass and couldn't move anymore.

After dinner mummy showed daddy that Ethan was very happy seeing the Japanese Artist Concert Christmas party show at our laptop. He clapped his hands and yelled when seeing it. Mummy told daddy that she doesn't know whether Ethan knows it or not but she can observe that the Japanese songs are not strange to Ethan as he listens to them almost very day.

Ethan's parent is the fan of Japanese dramas and songs. Parents even try to teach Ethan the Japanese language but only for a short period then have to let go because they do not want to give Ethan pressure. We hope that when Ethan is older a bit then only continue to teach him. Now our focus is only on English and Chinese first then only Bahasa Malaysia and Japanese language.

Summaries of 2007:
Toys and books
- This year Ethan got a lot of toys and also a lot books. Most of his toys were brought from Taiwan and US.
- Ethan have a lot of books which we can already prepared for him up till secondary. Mummy almost bought the whole set of "KEY WORDS WITH LADYBIRD - PETER and JANE" except for 1a and 1b due to think the books was too simple for Ethan. hihi

Clothes
- This year mummy also kept on buying Ethan a lot of clothes. Not like previous year seldom bought Ethan clothes.

Sick and injection
- Thank God this year Ethan seldom got sick (if sick also mostly gotten the virus from parents). Last year before Christmas, Ethan was admitted to hospital due to high fever and diarrheas.
- Ethan received expensive injection for inoculation this year

Motor Skills
Leg/Foots
a) Last year Ethan only knew how to crawl but this year he knows how to walk. We are freaked out by his late walking as he nearly hit the deadline of the milestone. Even the doctor said he has to be accessed if he still cannot walk at 18 months old. This might was due to his problem when Ethan was born. He only started to walk at 17 month, it was too late as compared with other kids.
b) Knows how to pedal the tricycle at 24 months old.

Hand/Fingers
- Ethan's hand and eye coordination is quite good as compared to his legs. He manages to do :
a) Shape sorter at 14months old
b) Learned to complete his puzzle at 16 months old and ABC puzzles at 18 months old (doctor said this is advanced as the age recommended was 3 year +)
c) Learned the jigsaw puzzles at 22months old for 12 pieces with/without picture underneath. Today just completely finished 40 pieces puzzles by himself.
d) Knows how to lace the beans at 22 months old
e) Stacking the wooden blocks - highest record was 14 blocks high
f) Knows how to open the bottle cover, unzip and put money into the box saver before 1 year old

Language/reading
- Knows how to talk before his 2 year old birthday. Keep on increases new words by the day. Still doesn't know how to communicate with people
- We have lost count of how many words he knows. For English, I guessed it should be more than 300 words. Chinese words maybe more than 30 words. Conclusion: Ethan learns English faster than Chinese words maybe because English uses 26 alphabet to form a words.
- Start reading aloud the Peter and Jane by himself but only can pronounce about 10% of the book.

Foods
- This year mummy had let Ethan eat rice instead of only porridge.
- Everybody complained that food prepared by mummy for Ethan was tasteless as mummy didn't put any light soya and any ajinomoto inside the foods. If mother cooks the soup for Ethan then mother only put a lot of meat and the red prune to make the soup tasty (this one maybe not suitable for adult). Mummy only doesn't want to develop a habit of eating a lot of ajinomoto foods. We seldom let Ethan eat outside foods as we found out that after he has eaten outside foods he will be very thirsty. Of course outside foods got a lot of ajinomoto inside.
- We suspected that Ethan cannot stand the light soya because when grandma cook the foods for Ethan and put these things inside the food. Few days later Ethan will have the reddish spot around his stomach. This things only happen when Ethan ate grandma's cooking. hihi. Even mummy let Ethan eat the light soya but mummy mix a lot of water with it.
- Loves eating the Cheerios and yogurt and yakult
- Haven't tasted the sweet yet. No junk foods for Ethan. Loves to eat chocolate but seldom gets to eat it. The other time finished a lot of the chocolate that daddy bought from Switzerland trip.

Other
- Luckily Ethan didn't develop a habit love to watch TV. This is maybe because his parent also didn't watch TV much. Parent's record was that one week and more didn't switch on the TV at all. Even sometimes parent watch TV, Ethan likes to play the TV remote control but not really wanted to watch the TV. He likes books most.
- When Ethan was a small, he loved to watch " Baby Einstein". However, these past few months he refuses to watch it. He likes to watch the "Brainy baby" but not for long period of time. Tried to let him see Barney but he only can stand for a while then turned away to do other things. When Ethan was small, he also liked to watch the "Baby Can Read" video. Actually this video was quite boring as the video only show the words and picture but somehow don't why he loved it.

New toy for Ethan and crazy artist

This morning we went to Tesco to buy some stuffs for Ethan. On the way there in the car, we played the children song "ABCD" on the CD player. Ethan sang together with the song as shown video captured by mummy at that moment. Apart from singing along with songs, Ethan also likes to dance to any songs, Chinese, English, Japanese, sometimes only music.

Listen carefully for the few words of A to Z that Ethan sang along

Mummy brought Ethan additional 2 new 40 pieces puzzle and some manila card for making some books for Ethan. Hopefully can finish it soon.

Recently Ethan likes to use crayon to scribble around here and there. A lot of our cabinet, wall, computer mouse and etc cannot escape from his itchy scribbling hands. Every time he walked up the staircases, he will point to the wall and tell us there was a mark in the wall. Of course, this is the mark left by him with his crayon. Daddy will remind him that he is the culprit. Hearing it, he laughs. Besides this, he also likes to rip the wrapping off his crayons. Mummy had to keep the crayons away in order to stop him. See the picture of his work on the crayon.

Some of the crayons don't have the paper to cover the body

We went to Jusco at Queensbay Mall. There are the Jusco toys section, Ethan saw a Barney doll. He got so hooked up with the doll that he hugged and kissed it.

Ethan with near his size Barney doll.

At Toys'r'us, Ethan took opportunity to play with various types of toys. This time he tried hands on the hula hoop.


Ethan got some new toy from Toys'r'us, we used up all our vouchers to buy this toy. He quite like it. Seeing him knocked the xylophone on the toy.

Quite pity daddy as daddy has to carry this toy whenever Ethan go (requested by our son)

We have gone to the Borders bookstore and hope that we can order the "Hocked on Phonics" for Ethan. However, it seems like the product categories was not matching with what mummy wanted. So I guess we have to buy it in US. Hopefully daddy will have business trip to US soon.

While at Borders bookstore, we were sitting at the children corner reading some board books to Ethan. There was a particular numbers board book that Ethan opened to read. When he saw the picture of a number of cars lined up to form the some number, Ethan began to point to the cars one by one and said out loud, "CAR CAR CAR ...". Came to a picture of eggs lining to form numbers, he pointed to the eggs and say out loud one by one, "Egg Egg Egg Egg ...". He kept on repeating until the last egg. It was so funny that when mummy observed him doing this - mummy couldn't help laughing. :-)

Mummy still hadn't completely completed the flashcards. So mummy just let Ethan play with some of those completed ones. Amazingly, some of the words Ethan already knew how to pronounce them. Daddy and mummy were surprised with the result. E.g. Ethan handed the word card and pronounce to mummy "jacket". Mummy only realize that he actually knows how to pronounce the words. Then we were so excited and showed other words card to Ethan and asked him to pronounce them. He actually managed to pronounced them to us. We were so happy for our hard work has paid off.

We didn't really teach him the words yet. Only if the books have the words then we just read to him and we didn't expect him to remember them. We noticed that when Ethan looks at the books, normally he will notice the words first before looking at the picture.

Recently, we taught Ethan to read the Peter and Jane book by himself. Actually he knows all the words inside the books but only that he cannot pronounce them all. Remembered back to the first time that I have read these books to Ethan. When I asked him where is the dog, car, ball and etc he will point to the words instead the picture of the books. We also noticed that he likes to link a lot of same things together. Like some example, when he saw a word in one particular book, he will go and find another book with the same words and then point to us indicating that these two are the same. Even the homemade books with the same picture he will also informed us. We only realize it was the same after he showed them to us. Indeed he has a sharp eye and a good memory.

Tricycle in the car porch

Today we didn't bring Ethan to the Park because we were waiting for the mechanic to fetch our car to repair. Somehow daddy's car has got some problem since yesterday - the radiator fan kept running on battery even though the car engine is switched off.

So in order to let Ethan exercise, mummy and daddy decided to let Ethan ride his tricycle in the car porch in the evening. Since one of our cars already taken to repair, daddy only had to park the Innova outside the gate and we could spaced out our car porch for Ethan to ride his tricycle. We purposely wash the floor prior and let Ethan play after it dried up.

Taken some photos of Ethan riding his tricycle.

Ethan got hard time when he ride towards the house because we had asked the construction worker to made our car porch slightly a bit sloping down. This is to prevent the car porch from accumulating water near the auto gate motor and also make it faster to dry out when we wash the floor. After Ethan mastered this tricycle mummy plans to buy another bike for Ethan hoping that his is tall enough to ride the bike. Starting to look around for such a bike.

A video captured with Ethan cycling happily at our car porch.

Every time if Ethan wakes up from his sleep and if he didn't cry it, you will know that he actually reading his "Peter and Jane" inside his own crib. He even likes to sleep with "Peter and Jane" books stacked up in one corner of his crib. If you do not do this, he will cry and ask you to do it.

Recently Ethan got a bad habit of spilling the water on the floor. He likes to suck the water and spit it on the floor. So you can see there is a lot of water here and there. We are afraid he will fall down like what happened last month.

Practising the vocal

Seems like when Ethan learned how to talk before his 2 years old birthday, he keep on practicing every words. So you can see that everyday he can learn a new words. Mummy had to said "Phew!" as before that mummy was quite worried about Ethan's progress. Basically Ethan has two things that freaked up his parents. They were late in walking and talking.

Everyday we can hear him counting and talking. Now he already can count to 20 but still has missing some number in between 1 to 20. He still cannot manage to pronounce number 4 and 7 (1 to 10). So funny things was whenever Ethan went inside his playroom he will walk to switch on the radio and when he hear the music from the radio he will dance.

Mummy wants to let Ethan put all the 40 pieces jigsaw puzzle by himself without mummy's help. However it seems like it is still too early as he only got it few days ago and only play with it for 1 or 2 time per day. What to expect? But he is improving every time he plays it. Until now he already managed to put up to 90% by himself. He was frustrated when he cannot match the next puzzle. He will yell and cry.

Ethan has improved in pedaling the tricycle, mummy thinks that Ethan was quite fast knowing how to pedal. This could be due to him practicing walking up and down the staircases by himself every day. Up and down the staircases actually had strengthens his leg's muscle. When you touch his leg's muscle it will feel like his meat quite hard.

Some of the toys that we have bought for Ethan when he was small that time, he did not show any interest. One of them is the wooden block daddy bought in US. Now we took it out and let him play, he likes it maybe because now he knows how to pronounce the numbers and ABC printed on the blocks. He likes to stack the blocks higher and higher and push them down.

Playground

After we had gone to bank, we dropped by Youth Park. Once again daddy missed a turning and took the long way of turning around at the Penang Turf Club. By the time we arrived at the park it was almost 10 something in the morning. Ethan was very happy as he recognized that he had fun time in the park. Quickly not wasting any time he played his favorite slide. Slide again and again. We have brought him to the poolside but we didn't let Ethan play the water as mummy didn't bring his swimming suit here. Once again when we want to go back that time Ethan refused to walk to the car park.

Because we wanted to pay the water bill we dropped by the Tesco on the way back home. Mummy managed to buy the water pistol and jigsaw puzzle for Ethan. Ethan cried not wanting to leave the indoor playground at Tesco. It was a very tired day for Ethan so he fell asleep again in the car on the way back home from Tesco.

After taking a nap, Ethan woke up crying like hell. Don't know what he wanted. He cried non stop till we didn't know what to do. In the evening, Ethan tried to play the new puzzle. Seems like it was difficult for him because it was a 40 pieces jigsaw puzzle. Ethan only managed to put some of its. He playing it and yelling when not able to find a match.

At night daddy wanted to go to midnight mass because it was Christmas Eve. Ethan seems to feel that daddy wanted to go out so he didn't want to let go of daddy. He grasped daddy hard. Daddy had to guide him down the staircase, walked to the outside gate. Took a look at the full moon in the sky. Got into the car, started the engine and drove out to the driveway then drove back in again with Ethan are the steering wheel. Once more time brought Ethan back into the house, walked up the staircase to the master bedroom. Gone into the bedroom and left him with mummy.

Buying the new shoes

This morning so funny seeing Ethan wearing the Holland wooden shoes. It was very small to fit his foot.

Today got a lot of kids in the park as we promised to bring Ethan once we have holiday. We only let Ethan play for a while because a lot of play facilities were wet. Seeing Ethan walking on the beam.

After going to the park we went to Queensbay Mall to exchange our Toysrus voucher before it expires. We saw one shop got year end offer selling sport shoes. Mummy told daddy why not try to find got any sport shoes to buy for Ethan. Mummy already want to buy for Ethan for quite some time but cannot find a suitable. Finally we brought Ethan a pair of "Nike" sport shoes. Wah it is so expensive and almost the same price as an adult sport shoes. It costs about MYR103+. Mummy told daddy that although Ethan is still small but he has already wear branded shoes??

Ethan's first Nike sports shoes.

Posing in front of his new shoe (still in the box)...

Since the bookstore got buy 2 free 1 offer for Peter and Jane series of books, mummy bought 9 books for Ethan. For lunch we went to the " Sakae Sushi " for the first time with daddy. Mummy felt that the dishes was quite salty.

We also taken some photos in the mall.

Ethan in front of the snowman Christmas decoration.

Santa Hat

Finally mummy managed to buy Ethan a Santa Hat in SP Tesco. First, mummy also wanted to buy the reindeer hair band but everybody were saying that the hair band was too small to fit Ethan's head.

When Ethan saw the staircase in the garden he quickly went and climbed it. Recently Ethan was showing dangerous actions. He likes to climb up the table and sometimes when he finishes eating his food , he will quickly climbed out from his high chair and stand at the tray table of the high chair.

Celebrate grandma birthday

We are early in celebrating grandma's birthday. Actually grandma's birthday falls on 25 Dec which is Christmas day. Mummy bought the same type of cake as Ethan birthday which is Apple cheese. Don't know whether is it Ethan recognizes the taste of the cake same as his recent birthday cake. We wanted to take the photo with the cake but Ethan already couldn't wait to eat. He didn't wait and he quickly grasped the plastic knife to cut the cake and put into his mouth. We have to stop him but is was too late.

Family photo with grandma...

Pedaling the tricycle for the first time

Today Ethan finally able to pedal his tricycle by himself for the first time. Mummy was impressed and immediately grabbed the video camera to capture the video shot below:

Ethan pedaling tricycle - forward and backward.

Amazingly Ethan is capable of pedaling the tricycle both forward and backward.

Christmas is coming to town

This morning we brought Ethan to the park again. We planned to bring him to the park every week so that we can train his physical movement. Luckily today Ethan didn't cry when leaving the park. Taken some photos of him having fun in the playground.

We planned to buy the Santa's hat for Ethan and also reindeer headband but could not find the suitable one. Recently all the supermarkets already have some Christmas decoration. Taken some photos of Ethan wearing the hats.

Before leaving the hypermarket we walked by one stall selling kid products. The salesgirl recommended mummy to buy the flashcard for Ethan for English, Chinese and math as they seen Ethan is still not suitable for the other games. But mummy said already taught Ethan when Ethan was still a baby. Guessed like they thought mummy does not really understand the products so mummy emphasized again that she had already taught Ethan. They asked whether is it flashed quickly and whether is mummy successful or not? They even let mummy see the book on how to teach using the flashcard. Mummy already finished reading the books written by Glenn Doman. So they recommended other games for Ethan but mummy thought that it is still not suitable for Ethan. Because the games seem like are recommended for age of at least 4 to 5 years and above but Ethan is only 2 years old. Mummy had to study the products before deciding whether to buy or not.

When we were on the way back home, Ethan counted the number again. We are amazed that he even knows how to count numbers backward from 10, 9, 8 ... In fact he even read the car park bay at Tesco, which is printed as "A5". He can read "A" "5".

Pedaling the tricycle

Today we were back from grandpa's house. Ethan didn't want to sleep in the morning session so he had to sleep in the car on the way home. He nearly slept at sitting position as he refused to let mummy hold him. Later mummy insisted to hold him even he yelled to protest not letting mummy do so. When we arrived at home that time, he woke up and played with some bottles while we were moving his stuffs. Later he played the busy bead then he cried like hell as mummy asked daddy why he cried, daddy said because he was unsuccessful to put through the lace into the bead so he cried. He did not stop crying for quite some time.

Later mummy had to request daddy to bring Ethan to the playroom. Daddy managed to read two Chinese story books to Ethan. Later mummy taught Ethan how to pedal the tricycle. Ethan managed to move his tricycle by pedaling for the first time. But he was still not so strong to move it for a long distance. Mummy has plan to put the tricycle in the car porch as the car porch has some slope so it is easier for Ethan to cycle. Have to let Ethan practice more.

When mummy gave Ethan to eat his favorite yogurt, Ayo! He did it again. Ethan put the yogurt in his hair again. Seems like he has already developed a habit of after finish eating the yogurt he will use yogurt as a hair gel.

Recently mummy noticed that Ethan like to remove the encyclopedia from the book shelf and flip through them. Mummy is not sure whether he is reading from the encyclopedia or playing with them.

Posing in front of the encyclopedia.

Night time, we have to let Ethan sleep at 8 something as he only took a nap of less than one hour during the daytime in the car on the way back home.

Daily routine

Seems like Ethan had developed a standard procedure life style for himself.

Few cases have shown that it is so:
1) Every time he enters the room, he will want to switch on the light, fan and air-con. Miss one of them and he will yell protesting that there are still things that haven't completely done yet. If you do these things for him he will cry like hell. So in order to stop him from crying, you have to switch off everything and let he do them himself. Even when walk out from a room, he also wants to made sure everything is switched off by him.

2) When he goes up staircase at grandpa's house, he wants to switch on the light at the staircase. Some funny thing was that at the day time normally people will not turn on the light but he insists wanting it to be turned on. For example one time when he had already walked up a few steps of staircase then suddenly he said "ah". Then he walked down again as he has forgotten to switch the light.

3) Similar thing happen when he is taking a bath. In grandpa house, when he wants to take a bath he will put all the different size buckets on the floor. When we pour the water on his body the water will fall into the bucket. After finish taking bath, he will push the pails aside and pour out the water from the bucket. He throws the bucket inside the pool in the toilet then he will request to stand on the pool side and asks to turn on the tap and close it. Before walking out from toilet he wants to take a look at the mirror before he goes out.

Every day he repeats the same things and he will not miss one of them. He can remember all the steps. Really funny seeing him doing that.

Recently mummy found out that Ethan doesn't like to see the flashcard anymore. One conclusion that mummy has was that he was bored with the same old words. So mummy has completed additional 192 words for Ethan. Wah! If included the new words that mummy had made - there were around 450 words for Ethan to read (excluded some words that shown in the homemade books)

That's a lot of words that Ethan already knows!

Yogurt Gel for new Hair Style

Ethan exceptionally likes to eat Yogurt. He can finish one bottle by himself after a meal. For the past few days he had been taking 1 bottle per day.

Below you can see that he is very creative. Ethan used Yogurt as a styling gel for his hair. What a mess he made himself.

Video showing Ethan style his hair with Yogurt gel.

Yogurt on my hair..

Ethan new style of swimming. He put the swim ring on his back. Act like turtle to swim.

Potty Training ???

Few months before mummy had tried to give Ethan potty training but the result was failure. It is partly because Ethan didn't show the sign that he wants to have potty training and mummy also lack patience to train him. Recently seems like Ethan shows some sign of him wanted to pee. When he wants to pee he will show this action.

Yesterday morning mummy nearly success as he shown he wanted to pee. However, it was too late. One time when he was playing with his crayon, he forgotten to inform and pee on the floor a bit. Then he realized he wanted to do so mummy quickly brought him to the toilet. After he woke up from the nap he didn't show this action so he used quite a lot of diaper in the evening.

This morning seems like he also forgotten to show but mummy have carefully monitored him so mummy was successful on morning session.

Today, Ethan had additional two homemade Chinese story books.

First time say Papa clearly

Today for the first time Ethan could say the word "Papa" clearly. Daddy is extremely thrilled and happy! Daddy immediately (wasting no time) grabbed his camera and shot this video.

Indeed it was a happy moment... Daddy had waited quite some time for this day to come.

Park again

Today after eating the "Dim Sum" we brought Ethan to the park again. Mummy told daddy that Ethan cried last trip to the park for he didn't want to leave the park. Today the weather is exceptionally fine and the air was fresh. Unlike yesterday the sun was too bright and Ethan's eye could not stand too strong sunlight.

Putting up the "yelling" pose.

When we arrived at the playground, Ethan quickly walked to his favorite slide. Daddy had to accompany Ethan and mummy has taken some photo. Ethan was having a fun time. Later we saw a lot of families brought their kids to the playground. When we felt that it was crowded, we decided to bring Ethan back home. Whenever we wanted to bring Ethan to the car park he will corner his direction to the fountain. Seeing that the weather was good, we let him walked around. When we decided to go back, Ethan once again refused and cried so loud. Ethan was very tired after we visited the playground as he woke up early this morning.

Recently mummy lack of teaching Ethan to read and just let him using the crayon to scribble on a piece of paper. But it seems like he was drawing beyond the paper. He likes to use crayon and do scribbling on the floor, cabinet and even the clothing. Don't know how to discipline him as we have told him so many times that the crayon is use to draw on paper not everywhere else.