Taisei Buffet

Officially Two and a Half

We've been casually trying to potty train Taisei since the beginning of the summer. We would wear training pants (underwear with lining) but would never tell us when he had to go, until after the fact. We still kept diligently putting him on the toilet at all the right times, even at times when we knew he had to go. But he would actually hold it! Sometimes, just 10 minutes later, he would have an accident. Yesterday, he went no. 1 in the toilet for the first time! AND, later in the day, he went for the second time! He was very excited about it and actually called me over to watch before his second success for the day. Yay - a big milestone, hopefully. :)


Yesterday, I had my most in-depth conversation with him so far:
Dad:

"Taisei, were you cold last night?" (He doesn't like to use his blanket)
Taisei: "Yeah."
Dad: "Did you use your blanket like I told you to?"
Taisei: "No - sampo." (No, I was cold when we took a walk.)
Dad: "Oh, you were cold at Chieko-sensei's house?" (I knew they took a walk at pre-school today)
Taisei: "No, Hiro's park. O sampo." (No, I was cold at Hiro's park.)
Dad: "Oh, you were cold when you took Hiro for a walk?"
Taisei: "Yeah."

Cool huh? I thought it was cool.

Last night, he let us weigh him and measure his height.

• He's 35.25 inches (around 40%) and weighs 26.5 lbs (?%)

In the past couple of months, Taisei suddenly started to talk a lot. Now that he's so much more vocal, it's become clear that his Japanese ability is far beyond his English ability. Maybe because of that, we notice his English phrases more. Taisei's common English phrases:

• "What are you doing?"
• "Did you see that?"
• "Oh, cool!"
• "Watch this!"

Here's what Taisei seems to be learning these days:

Thanks to a great teacher (former kindergarten teacher in Japan) in his "Wanpaku pre-school", he learned to:

• eat on his own and finish meals
• share with other kids and ask nicely if he wants something
• wear undies and at least learn to "hold it"
• wear clothes by himself, especially socks, shoes and pants
• stand up for and soothe the younger kids when older kids pick on them

In nursery at church, he learned to:

• hm... I can't think of much from here, unfortunately... obviously an under-utilized teaching opportunity
  
• play ring-around-rosie

At home:

• so far, he has thrown one fit of utter frustration (because we didn't want him to wear his underwear to bed)
  
• loves to hold newborns and sooth them when they cry. Sometimes it freaks out the baby's moms though.
  
• stacks and removes the plates after dinner
• always has to "help" with everything, and sometimes he actually does help
• has been refusing baths before bedtime
• has insisted on using scissors to cut things, so we bought him some kiddie scissors. not he runs around cutting up everything, particularly cutting out all the "scary monsters" out of the Halloween ads that we've been getting in the mail
• likes to draw "Totoro" and rockets
  

Taisei seems to have calmed down a little from his earlier days when he always fought back when other kids picked on him or took his toys. Now, he seems to really favor the underdog. He seems to have compassion, especially when other kids are crying. One time, he gave up his light-saber to his older friend S. when S. was crying over not having one (of the four). Another time, Wami was babysitting Taisei's friend L. L was crying because his mommy was not there and Taisei comforted him by saying "L, daijobu. Mama kuru." (L, it's ok. Mama's coming.) Interestingly, ever since that day, L and Taisei have been closer than ever.

ps. Of course, our boy is probably no different from the average boy out there, but because we are oyabaka, everything he does is amazing to us. :)

posted by Jerin at 7:28 PM