Two and a Half, almost
Updating the Taisei Buffet has been getting harder and harder. There would be so many items at the buffet table that no one would be able to try everything. There's no way to keep track of all the new things toddlers learn, say and do. But it has to be one of the most fun, and funniest, stages of kid development.So, just a few random thoughts here to give an idea of where he's at. Taisei seems to be a "helper." This is probably very common with the first kid, who doesn't have playmates at home. He just wants to do everything we do. Sometimes, it's very convenient. Yesterday night, after I finished dinner, he collected all the
plates, cups and utensils in one pile and brought it to mommy in the kitchen. In our house, the kitchen is at the other end of the house from where we eat, so it was a little scary, but he made it. At the same dinner yesterday, I noticed that he's gotten very good at using his training chopsticks. He LOVES tofu and uses his chopsticks to pick out all the tofu from his stir-fry and his miso soup. He also tries to help by wiping the floor, feeding Hiro, or putting on his own clothes.Wami and I noticed that when we hear him speaking to the other parent, there's always new things that we didn't realize he could say. The reason we don't realize them when he's talking to us is because he now speaks only one language to each of us. In other words, he speaks Japanese all the time to mommy and English all the time to pappa. Somewhere along the line, he abandoned the Chinese "ba-ba" for the Japanese "pa-pa."
Oh well. I lost that battle. :) I still think his Japanese is probably better than his English. When he talks to other kids outside of his Japanese playgroup, inevitably we here something to the effect of "What's Taisei saying?" Apparently, even with me, he'll mix in a lot of Japanese.One of the recent miracles is that he is finally ok with babysitting. He can take him to nursery, pre-school or the gym, and he's a little uneasy at first, but no tears! But that's only when mama drops him off. If I drop him off, then there are tears. What a weird phenomenon. Only mama is allowed to go do other stuff. If my papa's around, then I get all attention and definitely shouldn't need babysitters. That seems to be what he thinks.
By the way, last Sunday he drew his first happy face - an oblong circle with two eyes way at the bottom and a nose. He told me what he had drawn and then promptly scribbled it all out, or else I would taken a picture of it.
posted by Jerin at
12:14 PM
5 comment(s):
So here's a question for you as we are trying to decide what to do with Kai. Did you ever try speaking only Mandarin to Taisei? I wouldn't be able to speak purely Mandarin to Kai, but wonder if a little is better than none? Right now I just point out nouns and read to him in Chinese to get something in there.
By
Leasha, at
9/15/2008 5:00 AM
I'm the same as you. I only threw in a few nouns and phrases here and there. I wish I had spoken more. What I have learned is that everything helps. Every phrase you say more than twice, Kai will probably never forget (at least in his toddler years). I can ask him "Fei ji zai na li?" and he completely understands. After dinner, I say "Xi shou." I would say DO IT! :)
By
Jerin, at
9/15/2008 7:43 AM
I love it (not) when they draw something amazing and then scribble it out!
I love Taisei updates, keep them coming!
By
Aaron and Emily, at
9/15/2008 10:46 AM
Oh man,
Taisei can eat my tofu. I don't like it. Also, he is going to surpass my chopstick abilities very shortly. Maybe I need to borrow those training chopsticks. Ha!
That is so cute to read about his helpful activities. I still remember when he brought Hiro a bowl of water all by himself while we were eating outside with your other guests.
Wow, Taisei is so young to be handling babysitters so well.
I wish I'd seen his first happy face. How cool!
By
Esther, at
9/15/2008 10:56 PM
he's so cute! you are so lucky that two and a half languages are coming out of taisei naturally. it will be a blessing to him his whole life. wami, don't use too much english even as he gets older. before school i spoke mostly korean, but i lost most of my speaking ability and my understanding level stagnated at about a 5-year-old's. my parents were okay with that, and it didn't really damage me too badly... plus i did eventually learn it again, BUT it would have made my life richer if i could speak korean growing up. jerin maybe you had a similar experience or was your chinese not as sucky as my korean used to be?
have you ever read up about soy protein? you know, with the very reliable research tool called the internet? haha. there are a lot of conspiracy theories out there about it, tofu is not the worst offender, but it's interesting what is said about soy formula and soy protein in general. we still feed elias tofu when he'll eat it, but i've stopped giving ephraim soy formula every so once in a while when we're out and about. he's on straight mom's milk now. and i really regret the soy formula i used to mix into elias's oatmeal. but i didn't know any better. phytoestrogens. scary!
anyway, long tangent. your post just struck a memory that i had.
By
Michelle, at
9/16/2008 7:36 AM
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