Recently Ryan has started amazing us not just with his formation of sentences in his speech but also the way he uses words as expressions. This has taught us that whenever he is around we need to be very sensitive in using the right choices of words. Unknown to us, he is always picking up things. He may be playing while we’re talking amongst ourselves but his ears are actually listening to what we’re saying too.

One example of something he picked up without us knowing is one of his grandma’s phrase, “Oh my goodness!” We all had a shock hearing this come from him. It sounds weird though to hear such an expression coming from a little kid!

He’s also excellent at doing jigsaw puzzles. He’s able to memorise the image quite quickly before he starts fixing up the puzzle. Often we only need to guide him once on where the pieces should fit together and after that there’s no stopping him.

Ryan also remembers names very well. Names of people we have forgotten but he remembers. He remembers places and the things he did at different places very well too. It’s really no doubt that kids’ minds are truly absorbing like a sponge!

Because of this, it’s also important to filter the kind of programs they watch. Sometimes it’s inevitable that we adults may want to watch our kind of shows instead of always tuning in to Barney, Little Einstein, etc, but just make sure the kids are not absorbing what we don’t want them to. Speaking of TV, Ryan has a liking for smaller TV screens. He finds shows on those big lcd monitor kinda overwhelming. We adults go for big screens, the bigger the better but this little one prefers the smaller ones. Strange…maybe kids just find the bigger TVs more intimidating.

I think kids in this generation have been exposed to lots of TV shows since Astro came about with their cartoon channels. I suppose it’s good educational stuff for them but once they get addicted, that’s when the problem starts. At the moment I’m quite happy that Ryan is not exactly addicted so I still find the TV an educational tool.

One of the shows that I encourage him to watch is Ni Hou Kai Lan which aims to teach children some Mandarin through the animated stories. So far he finds the show funny because he’s not used to Mandarin words yet. But I think over time he will pick up a little here and there. We are also encouraging his babysitter to teach and speak with him in Mandarin.

Funnily enough, he’s not absorbing it as fast as the other things that he’s picking up. Hmm…wonder how we can help him along with that. Any idea how to start teaching a second or third language to a kiddo, anyone?

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Toddlers’ minds are really spongy!

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Ryan has always been an inquisitive child and I’ve enjoyed the questions he asks. He’s now 2 years and 4 months and he knows his alphabets (well, singing his ABCs, that is), counts up to 10 without assistance and up to 20 with some help, knows colours and his all time favourite is purple, speaks in long sentences and carries a tune rather well for a little guy his age.

Lately, the more difficult questions have come. From asking what us object names which is easy peasy to answer, he now asks questions that I need to think hard to answer.

Last week he asked me what is love. Then yesterday he asked me what is “around”, “everything” and “anything”. To us it’s an easy word. But try explaining those words to a kid! But I do answer his questions no matter how difficult it is to try to make him understand. I don’t know if he understands me but he still uses the words correctly anyway.

He is very curious, and tends to ask a lot more these days. Whenever he sees anything that seems extraordinary to him, he would ask the what, how, why questions. When he saw a car parked on the side of the highway needing roadside assistance, he asked what was the uncle doing. He also asked me why there are so many clouds in the sky. When he watches Barney, he would ask for the names of the kids and ask why he said this or that. So I’ve really got to pay attention sometimes in order to answer his questions properly.

This is getting real fun although tricky…but it sure is fun still for us to learn how far along he has come!

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The more difficult questions are now coming…

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Ryan loves to sing. And he’s a good singer. He carries a tune better than me, that’s for sure. And his talent of singing doesn’t come from me. That’s for sure too!

About a week ago we were at a mall and he was having fun playing with sand art. The kind owners of the stall were talking to us and they also operated one of those twist-balloon stall.

As we spoke, they persuaded him to sing a song but he didn’t really want to. But then he was “bribed” with a prize if he sings a tune for them and he happily did so. He sang Michael Jackson’s Heal The World. Apart from receiving claps, he also got his prize, which is this funky bike:

I thought this is really cool. My 2-year old can learn to sing for a living! Today he sang his way to a Sugus sweet. Not much of a prize compared to the balloon bike, but hey, it was a treat for him because he doesn’t get to eat much sweets.

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If my son can’t do anything else for a living, at least he can sing to save his life

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Yes, that’s how Ryan gets my attention sometimes. I don’t know where he learned the term “son” from. He knows “sun” because of the Golden Sun song from his Barney shows, but I didn’t know he understood what a “son” is. In any case, it’s been very entertaining since he learned how to use it. One minute it’s “Mummy, what’s your son doing?” and another minute it’s “Mummy, your son wants to kick the ball!”. I get thrilled each time he speaks like that. Well, maybe for now.

He’s also getting more and more independent. Sometimes up to the point that he cries and insists on doing something himself. He even refuses help from us in any way, until he really can’t do what he thought he could. I don’t get it. Is this a phase they go through to make a point to us that they’re growing up? It seems like just yesterday that he was a helpless little baby!

But in any case, I do think it’s good development that he learns to do things for himself. Maybe I’ve been too protective and always think that he’s not capable yet to do this and that. But children these days tend to prove us wrong by being independent earlier and are also smarter compared to our time, don’t you think so?

The fact that he’s growing so fast has reinforced in me that I’ve made the right decision to bring forward the plan to be a work from home mum (read my previous post here). At least I will have some flexibility of time to watch his growing years. I don’t want to look back years from now and say “My God, my son now has his own road tax and car insurance! Wasn’t he just a baby who can’t even crawl, let alone drive now?!”

I’m sure you cherish those years watching your children grow too. Wonderful times, yes?

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I have wanted to start Ryan on swimming some months ago, but all I did was talk and talk and talk and then came the H1N1 and I chickened out bringing him to a public pool. But we did buy him his swimsuit, and it waited patiently to be worn. Then some weeks back the grandma bought him one of those play pools that we could use at home.

We decided to let him have his first swimming experience in that little pool last weekend. It’s a very small one, but just nice to fit him into it with lots of his “toy friends” to play with.

He was very excited about it and willingly let his daddy change him into the swimsuit. But when it came time to go into the pool, he insisted that he wanted to remove the suit! There was no way we could get him into the pool with the suit on as he kept struggling to get out.

In the end we had to explain to him that the suit was meant to get wet and he HAD to wear something to swim. He still refused and made us take it off. We let him sit naked in the pool for a bit and then forced a t-shirt on him. But I was still uncomfortable with him being half naked in there so it was through more persuasions that we managed to get him back into the suit.

But even then, he was really funny. He refused to sit in the pool. He kept standing, possibly to avoid getting the suit wet. Then slowly, he went down on all fours and stayed that way playing with water. At the most, he would sit in that kneeling position. He just refused to land his butt on the floor!

Anyway, what matters most is that he had a happy time. I think it should get easier as we have more swimming sessions with him in the coming weekends. I just wonder how long it will take for him to be completely ok to get his swimming suit wet!

I also don’t know how long it will be before we bring him to the real pools due to hygiene issues especially with scary diseases going around these days. Some well-meaning friends who have pools in their homes for rent offered us to use them but I don’t think they are ideal either.

A friend recommended a pool that we can go to in one of those clubs nearby our place, as he finds it clean and not congested because people who are non-club members need to pay to get in and apparently club members don’t really use the pool. I guess that might be one alternative I will consider when we’re ready to take him to the pool. Well, more like when he’s ready to get wet!

Where do you take your kids to swim in?

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My son wanted to swim naked!

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