SPL's Blog

When I sat down to start typing this month’s update, I had to pause and smile — 23 months seems so much a bigger milestone as it’s the last month before SPL turns 2.  I am still amazed that it’s been ("almost" as SPL says) 2 years…….

I took better email notes this month so have more to tell — or bore you with 🙂

sidebar:  John and I were writing our compilation assignment last night for SPL’s preschool class (basically a collection of reflections on our year) and I went back to our 14 month blog post and the ones around it (that’s how old SPL was when we started preschool) to remember.  And I was *so* glad I had that resource — not because I really need to be precise with the compilation assignment — but because memory is faulty.  And it was fun remembering all the little details (and realizing that while I’d gotten many of them written down, probably 10 times that weren’t 🙂  And I know the ratio of remembered/written down to not written down is decreasing rapidly as SPL gets older and we get more busy.

Learning — where to start?  Sometime in the last 2 months SPL figured out all of his shapes.  I’m not sure when — we didn’t do a lot of shape shorting or shape puzzles (probably 3 times a week maybe?) so I’m not sure when this happened.  but I remember him asking for the shape puzzle (thanks Jacob, Carolyn, Adam (and Joseph — though that was before your time 🙂 at the beginning of this 23rd month and him naming and placing each one correctly in its place (8 shapes: he actually was better at the "harder" ones: diamond, star, heart and oval and took more time with square and rectangle.  Circle and triangle were "easy" :-).

Funniest learning story: John and I have been watching the Planet Earth series (and if you haven’t you should too — **amazing**) and we let SPL watch short parts too.  It’s amazing what captures kids’ imaginations – for SPL, it was the flat lizard.  Now be honest — how many of you out there know what a flat lizard is (before clicking to YouTube )?  If you ask SPL about the flat lizard now, he’ll jump, open his mouth,  and say "Fly", "fly"  — meaning he’s catching flies (not flying :-).

He’s much more coordinated now too — and we haven’t seen a gooseegg in months (dare I jinx it).  And he has much better eye/hand coordination — e.g. he can use the shovel and rake other objects into it at the same time.  Not sure how he figured that out, as we never specifically worked on it, nor do I do it that much.  Maybe it was the inspiration of the (who he *loves* to watch :-). 

This coordination and confidence also results in many situations of me/John saying "SPL, tubs/buckets of toys are not step-stools.  You need to get down."  (yes, we do have 3 actual step-stools in our house too :-).

And under the "things he likes" category:
— Giant trash cans/trucks
— hummingbirds: he can now hear their "clicking" chirp and knows it’s a hummingbird 🙂
— gardening: loves the gloves, the water, the dirt
— bubbles:  Our neighbor, KS, who’s 6 1/2 has been teaching SPL how to use different bubble wands.  One that he particularly likes allows him to get the best bubble production by spinning 🙂
— swimming: he’s gotten much more confident and proficient @ kicking, wearing goggles, standing on the steps and jumping or "swimming" to me (and by swimming, I mean with a push from his teacher).  He also puts his arms out in front now and even has paddled a couple of times.  He’s started to put his face in and blow bubbles.
— throwing the ball — he’s gotten much better at this — so much so we’re considering changing the rules in the house.

and songs — he loves "Adios" from Mandarin Music class (ironic that he calls it that not Zi Jien), "tick Tock I’m a cuckoo clock" (from swimming class) and twinkle twinkle little star.
 

Favorite toys: cell phone (still), Bobo the bear, balls, puzzles, Bob the Builder trucks (thanks Beth, Kate, Emily, Andrew, & Scott), motorcycle, puppets, dinosaurs

Language

• "Almost"
• "Dude" — this is a funny story.  I say "Dude" and honk the horn when someone does something stupid on the road.  So the other day, I just honked my horn and then  I heard from my backseat "Dude."  SPL had never said that before so I looked in the rear-view mirror and asked him "did you say `dude’?"  and he gave me that knowing smile.  And I laughed with him all the way home 🙂
• "Help me" = "help you" — I love how he switches pronouns.
• "cracker time" — announcement at lunch after he’d finished his mac and cheese — to my knowledge, neither John nor I have ever used this phrase.
• "big one" — he loves to pick out the biggest blueberry
• "reach" — goes along with his climbing on top of the toy bins — he’s inevitably trying to get something that’s out of reach.
• "chinese music" request — this surprised me too.  One morning, in the car (which is where we usually listen to our Mandarin Music class CD songs), he said, clear as day "Chinese Music?"  I was blown away.
• Tricycle

Verbs are big this month and his faves are "pick" &  "take" —
take — while we are playing in our play room, we talk about "take" a lot.  He’s interested in what’s "ok" to take and what’s not.  For example, when we were playing Lego together — he was putting pieces in his backpack and I was building a tower in parallel.  He reached over and said "take" to me as his hand went to a lego in my tower.  sometimes "take" is punctuated by a question mark inflection and others it is not :-).

And then there are the signs that he’s almost 2:
"now" has been ending many of his sentences recently.  And it’s met with a quizzical look from me and an "Excuse me?  How do we talk to each other?"  And that’s quickly (in most cases) followed by a sweet smile and a "Please?"  My favorite was in the car when I heard from the back seat "Sam’s music now" (and in *that* tone of voice). 

Telling stories: This continues to be a big part of his day-to-day and it’s fascinating to me and John.  He puts things together in remarkable ways — from stories about kids from preschool ("DF had a baby brother" or MR’s foot injury).  He’s also turned some of them into his own "joke" — where he applies one story to another kid and then smiles at me.

and he reaches back to April and talks about Auntie Suchi and Uncle Sai, or May and our visit with Grandee, Nana Dana, Max and Sophie (their cats), and Neel’s visit (and then seeing him again at Uncle Bryan’s wedding in May).

Just for fun, an ABC update (this is just for me to remember — sorry to sound like I’m bragging — it’s not totally bragging :-):  He knows A, S, X, L, E, F, H, O, Q, M and B, R, Z, J pretty well.

Personality:

SPL is still very observant, curious, and knows what he wants a fair amount of the time.  He loves to help around the house — something that has been true for awhile but recently has taken on the form of specific tasks like clearing his plate from the table and helping us to unload the dishwasher.  He still likes to sweep and "clean up" at the sink (which can result in a meltdown if he’s tired as he *really* likes to use the sponge and brush and doesn’t understand that they are very place specific — i.e. taking them out of the sink and putting them on the floor or elsewhere non-sink-related is not cool (why not mom, those places need cleaning too :-)?

He’s also developing empathy which is nice to watch.  For example, on our flights to and from Atlanta, we used a story of "it’ll make the person in the seat in front of you sad" to convince him not to kick the seat.  We’ve been talking a lot about different feelings so it’s not surprising that that story worked.

He also is responsive and cooperative to a great degree, which is huge :-).  And considering his age, I have to say we’re very fortunate (I’ve heard many stories of feet dragging and tantrum throwing from some of our friends and so far, our tantrum experience has been minor :-).

The other amazing part of his personality that’s blossoming is his sense of humor (we say he’s got the Korb genes :-).  He’s starting to make jokes like pronouncing his friend Katie Mencken’s name in a funny way or saying "What?!?!?" and throwing out his hands after we sing a funny line to a song (e.g. the Wheels on the bus having chickens on the bus — What?!?!  Chickens?!?!?  🙂

Big new experiences this month:

• riding in car w/ his babysitter, Emily — THis was his first time to ride in a non-family member’s car so it was a bigger deal for me, I think.  But when I got home, he immediately marched me outside to show me that his carseat was in Emily’s backseat.  He was so happy about it too 🙂
• Going to see his first baseball game @ Sunken Diamond
• riding the train 6/7 — we’ve been watching the lightrail train from a distance for awhile, so it was fun to actually ride it :-).

Games

• Pillow diving — this was his and John’s creation.  I’ll post a video in a bit so you can see.
• shopping in the hallway — he grabs my Trader Joe’s canvas grocery bags and pretends to shop in the hall ("eggs" and "apples" and "byee byes" (his word for bananas)

big accomplishments (besides all the language milestones): baseball –hitting the wiffle ball w/ the metal bat, drinking from his cup w/ using his hands and drinking using a straw.

That’s it for now.  Hopefully I’ll have a video montage for this month.  Stay tuned.