It's been a while that the girl's development has been posted in terms of her character and speech. I'm assuming it is also part of the Terrible Twos that at times her attitude is way beyond what we can make out of it and when she throws her tantrums, we tend to ignore her. And most times, she surprises us with her maturity of understanding on a lot of things and can even tell us stuff that we don't know or correct us for that matter. We are often reminded by her (action-wise as well as verbally) that she is no longer a baby.
The following are incidents of the past several months. There are probably more but these are what I can remember (serves me right for not penning them down when it happened):-
On correcting our speech
The girl was lying down drinking her milk from her bottle and she started talking. Her papa told her that she is not supposed to talk while eating and she said "I'm not eating-la, I'm drinking milk"
Her papa has been calling her "baby" even before she was born and this term has remained ever since. At times she will question him "why you call me baby? i'm not a baby-la, i'm rye li" or "i'm not a baby, i'm a big girl ady (already)"
The endless questions of "why, where, what,who"
She loves asking questions now which can really be annoying especially when she repeats them. The things she likes asking:
"who buy this for me one?"
"why you buy this for me?"
"why the baby cry?"/"why the boy crying?"
"papa go xxx for what?"/ "why papa always go xxx one?" [when her papa travels for work]
"after this, we go where?" [she loves to go out all the time, when we're at home weekends, she tends to ask us after her bath/nap, where are we going]
And she has a habit of saying "oh" after we have answered her questions like an adult and at times I wonder to what extent that she understood us. But whatever it is, I do feel she does understand us as I reason a lot with her after she has throw her tantrums. I want her to understand why I was angry and that her being naughty doesn't help the situation. Most of the times I have to admit that I need to bribe her, for example, if she wants something, I will tell her that she has to be a good girl and to listen to me before she gets it or when there is a party/event to attend, she needs to be well behaved or she can't go. So this has lead her to saying "I (am) good girl, I listen (ed) to mummy"
The other day in the car on the way home from the daycare, she was really talking a lot and I just let her be while concentrating on driving and my own thoughts. This went for several minutes when she said out loud "mummy, i'm talking to you-la", she repeated this a few times till I realized it and I had to apologize to her.
Being attached
She knows I can't carry her a lot lately as my back is 'pain-pain' [an excuse that I've been using ever since I found out I was pregnant and she buys this which works fine for me] and so, she is becoming quite attached to her papa. She wants him to carry her most of the time and I can see she is really happy when he returns from his travels.
Just last week, for the first time, she actually cried talking to her papa on the phone when he was in Shanghai for the week. She kept saying "I want papa, I want (to) follow papa there". It became so bad that I had to end the call and comfort her for a while after that.
I only wish she is alright sleeping with her papa at nights but she still wants me. The weekend when I was having fever and didn't want to sleep in her room as I couldn't take the air-cond; the first night without me went alright although she made some fuss. The second night, she cried as if she's never ever going to see me again and so both of them ended up sleeping with me in my room without air-cond. And after this, she insisted that I sleep with her till now [I still have no clue how the sleeping arrangements will be when baby 2 comes].
She is also beginning to show more tantrums lately (perhaps due to Baby 2?) and I notice this is worst when her papa is around. The worst was last night when we had to attend my mom's birthday dinner which she was looking forward to. I'm guessing she was overwhelmed with the other guests there (we had 4 tables) that she refused to sit down with us and wanted to go home! This is coming from a girl who loves to go out and has been very well behaved with all our dinner events. We couldn't understand why she was like that; she insisted her papa to carry her out and when he walks back to our room at the restaurant, she starts crying like she is afraid of something. So in the end, we took turns to be with her throughout dinner outside. Luckily, my niece and nephew were there as well to play with her and towards the end, she was alright joining us back in the room. I guess she needed some time to warm up this time but this was definitely the first time we ever experienced such weird behaviour; she practically clung on to her papa!
Getting scared
Her fears have increased lately. All this while she is only scared of dogs and cats, even the cute small ones! She is now scared of thunder and has been using this as an excuse every night that she doesn't want to go to Aunty Ng's (there was a huge storm last week and I think the caretakers there couldn't exactly carry this girl and give her the attention she needs). When there's thunder at home, she wants her papa to carry her.
She is also scared of the vacum cleaner - she used to sleep through the noise when she was a baby. Whenever the vacum cleaner is on, she will stay away from it and stay put on the sofa. When we were in Penang recently at the hotel's pool's toilet, I accidentally stood too close to the hand-dryer and it turned on. That scared the jeepers out of her and ever since then, she refused to go into the toilet. I tried to show her that it is to dry our hands but it made things worst, she started jumping and screaming, wanting out of the toilet as if she saw a ghost!
Lately, she is scared of balloons! She loves them all this while but we had a birthday party to attend last weekend and the kids there burst some balloons. So since last weekend, we now can't blow any balloons for her and when we start to, she will start crying like she saw a ghost too! She even threw away the balloon she had at home. And we were at the mall just now and someone offered her a balloon and she refused saying she is scared!
Singing songs
This girl loves singing now and she tends to sing songs that I've not taught her and I take it that she has learnt it from the daycare. Just last week, she sang a Malay song to my surprise. I knew this song as it was a song we learn from school. It's the "Bangun Pagi" (malay: wake up in the mornings" and I only remember the first 3 lines. So this girl taught me the remaining ones except for the last one (?) as I can't tell what she is saying. Perhaps if you do remember, I would like to know. She taught me the following:-
Bangun pagi, Gosok gigi, Cuci muka, Pakai baju, Minum susu, Makan Roti, ....and then? and is she right?
Being stubborn
She is really stubborn and wants everything her way (also part of her independence). Before we can help her, she needs to do it herself first. This is fine but when we're rushing for time and can't give in to her, she will start with her tantrums. Very rarely, we will give in depending on the situation but most time we just let her cry it out.
How stubborn can she be? I remember some time last year she wanted something her way before bedtime and I didn't give in. Then she acted up and I wanted an apology from her but she refused. And so I threatened her that if she doesn't apologize, I'm not going to make her milk. She just sat there sulking with her thumb in her mouth and at times was staring at me. I ignored her and went to sleep. I knew she was tossing and turning after that and I asked her if she wants milk or not but she ignored me. And eventually she slept without her milk! I really didn't expect that as I thought she would want her milk.
When reverse psychology doesn't work on her
I tend to do this a lot as in play reverse psychology on her. Mostly, it works but recently, it has back-fired on me. This girl knows how to switch off the TV and I'm trying to ger to switch it on too since it's the same button but somehow, she doesn't want to switch it on herself. So I told her that if I were to switch it on for her, she will have to watch my shows first and not her cartoons and she went "Ok, for a while only ya!" and she will stress again "for a while only ya". And when I do watch my shows, she likes saying "Ok, mummy show finish ady (already), time to watch my cartoon now!" although my shows haven't ended.
On being so independent
Only recently, she doesn't want to wear her diaper when we go out. If we're going out for a long time, I will make her to as I don't feel comfortable bringing her to our public toilets just as yet. But this girl still wants her diaper when she poos. At home, she will bring a clean diaper to us and said she wants to poo. I have tried many times to tell her to poo in her potty or toilet bowl but she refuses. I even nag her that she is wasting my diaper and my money only for her to reply "it's my diaper-la, not mummy (s)". Oh, she also must have the last say to most things!
She also wants to wear her clothes or remove them on her own. We are not allowed to help her until she asks for it.
Being hygenic?!
Her papa scolds me at times for this as my little one can be clean-freak most of the times. When her hands are dirty, we need to wash or wipe them immediately. If her clothes get wet, even just a little, she wants a change of clothes and this one is not my doing, it is the daycare's!
But this is where it gets interesting. Only just recently, I notice when she do kiss other people other than me, she will wipe her mouth with her hands. Even when she kisses her papa. So I tested her today on this and true enough with me, she was alright, didn't do anything after she kissed me but immediately wiped her mouth when she kissed her papa. So her papa asked her why she wiped her mouth and she replied "Because got saliva" . Haha...at least I feel I'm still wanted! ;)
