Now that Gavin has been picking up new words on a daily basis, it is getting even easier to understand what he wants. He has developed words to express what he needs. For instance, he’ll say “bite” when he’s got an itch and he wants us to do something about it - like apply a cream to help soothe the itch.

Despite the increased vocabulary, there are times when it’s difficult to decipher what he wants because his pronunciation requires refining. When he’s echoing a word we’ve used, it’s fairly easy to understand what he means, but when he uses the unidentifiable sound at random, it can be quite a task figuring out the meaning.

For instance, he cannot pronounce “Thomas” so he says something that sounds like “dunno”. I suspected that “dunno” was in reference to “Thomas” because he would sign “train” when I didn’t produce what he wanted – his Thomas toy. It only became clear that “dunno” was “Thomas” when I was teaching him the concept of “big” and “small”. I pointed to his big Thomas toy and said “big Thomas,” then I pointed to the small Thomas toy and said “small Thomas.” When Gavin repeated after me, he said “big dunno” and “small dunno”.

Even with the confusion when the words don’t sound recognisable, the signs and words that Gavin has learned has made it a lot easier for us to understand what he wants. I feel certain that there is some correlation between this and the reduction in tantrums that I have noticed in recent times.

Of course there are still times when his emotions get the better of him and he gets upset before he’s even told me what he wanted. During such times, I realise the truth to what Margot Sunderland writes in The Science of Parenting about how children in distress tantrums lose their words and their ability to communicate. During such times, no matter how I ask him what he wants, he can only cry in frustration.

I find there are two ways to handle this situation that seem to work best.

1. Give Him Words

First I try to guess what he wants and offer him words to express himself. I find the technique that Harvey Karp recommends in Happiest Toddler on the Block works best – short sentences containing only a few words repeated over and over again until he can register what I’m saying through the storm of his tears. Because he is in distress, his ability to comprehend what I’m saying decreases dramatically.

One afternoon, when he woke up from his nap, I brought him downstairs like I normally did. On this occasion I was carrying him because he wanted to be carried. When I put him down onto the floor so he could play with his toys, he immediately dissolved into howls of frustration.

Surprised, I picked him back up and asked him what he wanted. For a while, all he could do was cry so I kept repeating, “Tell me what you want.” Finally, the crying subsided somewhat and he pointed in a vague direction. When he’s distressed, even his sense of direction is skewed because he would point to the kitchen when he meant to point to the front door.

I said repeatedly, “Go to the kitchen?” No answer so I started walking to the kitchen. The crying started again, so I quickly walked back and said, “No kitchen! No kitchen!”

When I finally figured out he was pointing to the front door, I said, “Gavin want to go out? Gavin go outside?”

When he nodded, I said, “Okay, we go outside.”

Once he knew he was going out, he gradually calmed down again and that was when I told him, “Gavin when you want something, tell me – use your words. If you want to go out to the garden, you say, ‘Mummy walk walk!’”

Yesterday, he wanted to go out to the garden and I heard him say, “Ah Mi, walk walk!”

I find that giving him words to express things he might want or need is very useful. Although I have to remind him a few times, he learns pretty quickly to tell me or any other member of the family.

Recently, I’ve been attempting to potty train him, so whenever I put on his training pants, I tell him that if he wants to go to the toilet, he should tell me, “Mummy wee wee” or “Mummy mm mm.” We had a hit and a couple of misses, but usually I had to ask him and check whether his pants were wet.

Yesterday, I was upstairs talking on the phone while Gavin was playing downstairs with my SIL2 and the maid. Apparently, he went to the maid and said, “Kakak mm mm.” Then he squatted down and grabbed his diaper. Although he had already pooped in his diaper by the time my SIL2 and the maid attempted to remove his diaper, I thought it was a giant leap forward in terms of his communication.

2. Hold Him

When I can’t figure out what Gavin wants during a distress tantrum, I usually just hold him and let the storm ride its course.

I’ve been trying to tune into his tantrums to distinguish between the distress tantrums from the Little Nero tantrums and I think I’m getting better at picking them. I still find he launches into distress tantrums more than the Little Nero ones at this age.

Reducing Confrontations

After reading so much about attachment parenting (also known as responsive parenting), I’ve been trying to put to practice more of the concepts in my interactions with Gavin.

One of the practices of attachment parenting is to know your child and his hot buttons so that you can minimise the number of occasions that you have to press them – especially when it is completely unnecessary.

There are times when it is completely unavoidable, such as when you have to tell him not to touch the power point for his own safety, but there are plenty of times when you can head off a tantrum before it begins.

For example, bath time is one of my biggest problems with Gavin – especially when it comes to getting him out. When I’m in a rush, I’ll usually skip the bath (if I don’t think he’s that dirty) or give him a wipe down with a wet cloth if I think he really needs it, so I don’t have to cramp his style by demanding that he get out of the bath before he’s ready.

That means that when he does have a bath, I have the time to wait until he’s ready to get out if I can’t convince him to come out through other means. And while I wait, I can do all those things I normally have to rush through, like floss my teeth, moisturise and any of those beauty routines I never have time for otherwise. That way I can also keep an eye on him to make sure he’s okay in the bath.

Know Your Child

Practicing responsive parenting has taught me a lot more about being able to understand Gavin. They say that some parents just instinctively know what their child wants or needs and I used to think that I was totally useless. Now I realise that a lot of that instinct has to do with knowing your child and how he ticks.

Sometime back, my MIL, Gavin and I went to the Parenthood Magazine publishing office to pick up his prize from winning one of the baby contests I entered him into. When we got home, my MIL announced, “Okay, we’re home!” Immediately, Gavin dissolved into tears of frustration.

Alarmed, my MIL exclaimed, “What’s wrong now?”

Instinctively (never thought I would be using this word about my son since I’ve always believed I had zero instincts when it came to understanding children), I knew that Gavin was upset because he thought he was going out to a shopping mall to walk, instead what he got was a quick trip to an office where all we did was pick up a parcel and come back home.

I told my MIL what I thought and she said, “Okay, okay, we go kai kai.”

We took Gavin for a brief shopping excursion to The Alpha Angle and after that he was quite content to come home.

These aren’t exactly an exhaustive list of managing toddlers with tantrums but I found they have significantly reduced the tantrums I have been experiencing with Gavin.

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Ever since Gavin was young, he has demonstrated a sense for brand loyalty. It began with Starbucks after I started feeding him sips from my Starbucks hot chocolate. After that, he would start pointing at Starbucks whenever we passed it, indicating he wanted hot chocolate.

The next big brand Gavin decided he liked was anything with Thomas and Friends. He would go berserk whenever he got a new Thomas and Friends product – be it a toy, a VCD or a towel with a picture of Thomas on it.

His godmother recently gave him a Thomas pillow case and he started dancing with joy. I think the exuberance he displayed when he received it spoke volumes about how grateful he was to receive this present. When I asked him to say “thank you” to godma, he signed “thank you” enthusiastically several times.

During a grocery shopping trip, I discovered another brand preference Gavin had developed. The first bottled juice we introduced him to was by the brand “Peel Fresh”. It wasn’t long before he would start looking for “Peel Fresh” in the supermarkets whenever we go shopping.

After my most recent food poisoning episode, I seem to have developed an affinity for drinking orange juice, so I started buying the 2L cartons of juice instead of the 1L cartons. For some strange reason, Village Grocers in Bangsar Village only sell the 1L cartons of Peel Fresh. Since they didn’t have the 2L cartons, I decided to get Sunkist instead. Even though I had put two 2L cartons into the trolley, Gavin kept pointing to the Peel Fresh carton, indicating that that was the one he wanted.

Over the weekend, we took a family trip to Teluk Intan to visit some of hubby’s relatives. Among the stuff we brought with us was a tin of Milo. When Gavin saw the Milo tin, he started saying “Mi. Mi.” - ever since that day, he has been saying “Mi” whenever he sees the Milo logo.

So here are a couple more brands that have just found themselves in the history books of Gavin’s Choice Awards:

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Before I became pregnant, my plan was not to allow Gavin to watch TV until he was at least two years old because of the recommendations that TV is not interactive and delay the development of a child due to the lack of interactivity.  Unfortunately, I have been unable to stick to my ideal and have had to come to a compromise with TV viewing.

I try to keep Gavin’s viewing time down to a minimum, but I’ve realised that crossing the line makes it hard to stay close to it.  One of the dangers of TV is the tendency to use it as a baby sitter which then significantly increases the viewing time of a child.  Although I’ve come to accept Gavin watching the TV, what disturbs me is the manner in which he watches it.  When his favourite TV program is on, it is as if he can’t hear anyone talking to him.  You can be right next to him and he will completely ignore you.  When you stand in front of him, he’ll move until he can see the TV again.

The hubby once joked, “Look at the way your son watches the idiot box like an idiot.”

Humour aside, there was a lot of truth to the statement because Gavin was completely mesmerised by the TV.  And since I can’t eliminate the TV altogether (too many people in the household will be required to quit watching TV in order to achieve this), I’ve decided to take measures to reduce the “idiot” effect of the TV by doing the following:

1. Take Gavin out of the house whenever possible so he can have a more interactive environment rather than the TV.
2. Avoid turning on the TV for as long as possible because when Gavin isn’t watching, sometimes he’ll find other things more amusing.
3. Bring out lots of toys for him to play when the TV is on because he’ll divide his attention between the toys and the TV - which I think is effectively less time with the TV.
4. Watch TV with Gavin and create interaction myself by answering the questions that Mickey or Darby ask. (Mickey Mouse Club House and My Friends Tigger and Pooh try to make their programs more interactive by asking questions at strategic points of the program for children to answer, e.g. How many ducks can you see?)
5. Sometimes when we watch his favourite show “Thomas and Friends“, I’ll turn the volume off (Gavin doesn’t seem to mind if the volume is off) and read the subtitles to him so it becomes a little like reading an interactive story book.  (One of the great things about “Thomas and Friends” is that it plays with a narrator’s voice over so the subtitles read like a story book.)  I’ve noticed that when I “read” Thomas to him, he directs part of his attention to me.
6. Watch programs with music, signing and dancing (like Signing Time) so we can sing, sign and dance along to it.

Read more on the subject of TV viewing for infants and toddlers.

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Sorry about the password protect on the last post.  I would have made it publicly available except that someone’s naked torso was captured in the video and I don’t think that person would approve of me blogging about that video even though the subject in the video was Gavin.  Anyway, friends who want access to the video can always contact me.

Here’s the picture of Gavin’s almost completed work.  He likes to line up the chairs and he’s quite particular about making sure the chairs are in line.

Having had friends with children slightly older than Gavin, I have had the opportunity to observe other kids developing ahead of Gavin and I have realised that aside from the obvious list of milestones (like, sitting, standing, crawling, walking, talking, etc.) there appears to be another list of milestones that children go through.  Or at least I think they’re milestones since I only have a study of two to go by.

For instance, I noticed that both Gavin and his godsister went through a phase where they both enjoyed giving imaginary objects to friends and relatives.

I’ve also noticed that both Gavin and his friend Jack went through a phase where they would start feeding their toys Mummy’s milk.  Considering how special Mummy’s milk is, I think it’s the first step towards learning how to share.

Gavin and Jack have also developed the same habit of lining up their toys (cars in Jack’s case, trains in Gavin’s case) neatly and don’t like it when anyone tries to move their vehicles out of order.  They both appear to have a need to orderliness and I’m not sure if it is a characteristic inherent in both toddlers or if it is just a phase most toddlers go through.

Another developmental stage that Gavin shares with Jack is one where Daddy isn’t allow to put his hand on Mummy’s shoulder whenever Mummy is carrying baby.  Whenever Daddy tries to put his hand on Mummy’s shoulder, baby will start slapping Daddy’s hand as if to say, “Mummy’s all mine!”

Has anyone else noticed their infants and toddlers doing the same?

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Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple), Fred DeLuca (Subway) and David Geffen (Dreamworks) are four of the richest people in the world and one thing that they have in common is their lack of (or limited) formal education.  Being raised in a family where education was highly valued and sought-after, I still believe in the value of the education system, however, I realise that the real life experiences play a big role in shaping a child and preparing him for success in the real world.

One of the problems with a lot of schools these days is that too many are guilty of teaching children how to follow but not to think for themselves.  If you want your child to succeed in life, it is becoming more important for them to learn to be street-wise and not rely solely on what they learn in school. 

Helping your child to break away from the herd mentality and how to think outside the box often requires sending them to the school of hard knocks.  With the advent of the internet, this is getting easier to do with less risk.  It used to be that if you wanted to foster your child’s entrepreneurial spirit, it meant sending them out to the street corner where they could sell lemonade for a few cents a cup.  Nowadays, you can use electronic methods to educate your child on the ways of the world.

Admitedly, in the days of lemonade stands, parents had a lot less to fear about the dangers imposed on their children for being out on the streets.  These days, with rampant kidnappings, child rape and murder in the news, a parent could be forgiven for being over protective.  Even the internet is not free from paedophiles and unsavoury characters whom no parent would ever want near their child, but the benefit of using the internet is that you can still monitor who comes into contact with your child if you take the appropriate measures.  It allows you to offer your child a real-world education to run alongside their formal education.

Rather than focussing entirely on formal education, hubby and I have decided to adopt a more relaxed attitude towards school and allow Gavin to choose his own profession.  I believe that if you make education fun and relevant, a child will be more interested to learn - just look at a toddler and how he learns through play. 

Even I have realised that learning becomes so much easier when I am keenly interested in the subject rather than being required to learn it.  The ability to excel increases manifold simply because the attention applied is much greater.  When I think back to my school days, most of the lessons that remain firm in my memory are the ones that I had a keen interest in, while the ones I learned for the sake of learning have fallen by the wayside.

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Sunday morning, the hubby and I took Gavin to see the Aquarium in KLCC.  It might have been because it was indoors and cooler, or perhaps it was because Gavin loves fish, but he seemed to have enjoyed this visit a lot more than he did the zoo.  From the moment we entered and saw the first enclosure, Gavin was busy pointing to all the different fish and telling us about them in Gavin’s language:

The picture quality is quite bad because the lighting in the aquarium isn’t exactly conducive for phototaking - at least not with my portable digicam.

I think his all-time favourite exhibit was the one with the giant fish which looked longer than Gavin is tall:

He was so excited by all the BIG fish, he kept saying “big”, except it sounded more like “bic”.

The shark tunnel felt a bit weird, probably because of the distortion produced by the glass and the fact that the dome was a lot smaller than the acquarium we saw in Melbourne. 

Below: the shark tunnel in the Melbourne Aquarium.  Even back then Gavin (7 months) showed a lot more interest in watching the fish.

The KLCC aquarium had a travelator that took you through the entire length of the shark tunnel, but the whole experience made hubby and I feel a little dizzy. 

All in all, we spent about an hour and a half in the aquarium but by the end of it, Gavin was feeling quite tired and ready to go home. 

When I asked Gavin whether he enjoyed himself, he nodded.  When I asked him if he would like to come back again, he nodded.  I guess we’ll be visiting the aquarium more often.  I guess he enjoys the aquarium because of his familiarity with fish (my FIL has a koi pond).  He seems to take a keener interest in the things that he recognises so perhaps if I start showing him the Signing Time “Zoo Train” DVD, he might be more interested in the animals at the zoo when we take our next trip there. 

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My SIL2 told me about a Thomas Fair being held in Great Eastern Mall over the weekend, so last Saturday night, hubby and I took Gavin to check it out.  Aside from displaying a whole range of Thomas toys and VCDs, they also had a huge bouncy Thomas which children could play on at $5 per entry.

From the moment we arrived at Great Eastern mall and Gavin saw the giant Thomas on the concourse from way up on the third floor, he was all rearing to go.  We wisely decided that we should have dinner first or there would be no getting Gavin or we could all expect to go hungry since there was little likelihood of Gavin agreeing to leave the Thomas fair to go eat.

After dinner we took him down to the concourse and Daddy paid for his entry.  There were lots of other children bouncing around on the bouncy Thomas, but our son did not join in.  He was content to watch from afar and to “do his own thing”.

No matter how we coaxed and encouraged, he still preferred to stand on the sidelines rather than getting in, although I was convinced he would have gotten on if there hadn’t been so many other children around.

A mother with a few children playing on the bouncy Thomas noticed Gavin and remarked that he must be the only child.  Hubby said that he was.  She said that her son was the same until his sister came along.  With his sister along, he was more eager to join the fun. 

Now that I think back on it, I remember my brother was the same.  He was always the more reserved child, while I was the one always rearing to go.  My brother would only join in the fun and games because I was there.  I suppose not all first childs are like this, but at least I now know who Gavin takes after - his uncle.

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At 19 months old, Gavin’s eating habits are still somewhat questionable and recently, I’ve been receiving some heat for it.  Although he is a healthy weight and growing well, there is still a lot of concern about the fact that he doesn’t seem as interested in food as other children his age.  Let me qualify that - other children we know who are his age.

As I’ve said before, in a Chinese family, food is love - we live to eat.  The idea that a child does not like to eat deals a crushing blow and strikes fear in the heart of all those who love him.  So naturally, there are a number of people up in arms over Gavin’s lack of interest in food.  In fact, this has been a persisting issue since he started solids at six months.

Quite honestly, I feel I have tried everything I can think of.  I have also read quite extensively on toddlers who won’t eat and the advice is the same everywhere - keep offering food and try to relax.  The more anxious you are about your toddler not eating, the more likely he is to continue this pattern.  It has taken me a while to relax and just when I have started to accept my son’s eating habits, I have been accused of not trying to correct his behaviour or researching how this might be done.

I really don’t know what else I can do to encourage Gavin to eat besides forcing his mouth open and shoveling food in there and for obvious reasons, I won’t do that.  Neither will I resort to threatening him to eat.  I have heard of a mother who spanks her daughter with a cane if she refuses to eat - and I fail to see the logic behind that.  She’s just increasing the negative association that her daughter has with food.

So let’s break it down and take a look at the problem:

Gavin is 19 months old and he has eight teeth.  I’ve noticed that he tends to go off food especially when he’s sick or when he’s teething.  Since he still has quite a number of teeth to erupt, I guess it’s safe to say that the eating patterns aren’t going to improve on their own in the near future.

The times when he’s eaten well, the foods he ate were - cheese, bread, cereals, biscuits, noodles, ice cream, hot chocolate, soup, congee and rice.  However, none of these foods have consistently been a real hit with Gavin except the hot chocolate and the ice cream.  The fact that he eats ice cream with such gusto suggests to me that he doesn’t have a problem with eating but that he is just very selective about his food choices (not unlike someone we all know).  It’s just unfortunate that ice cream is hardly a staple food that we can offer him on a regular basis.

We have also noticed that Gavin eats a lot better when he is in the company of other children.  Perhaps it is the influence, perhaps it is the fear that all his food will be eaten, he seems to be more interested to eat when his friends are eating.  Aside from encouraging more outings with friends with kids, there’s probably not much else we can do about this until Gavin gets another sibling.

Other reasons for not wanting to eat - snacking too much, or consuming too much fluids.  I’ve noticed that we tend to feed him a snack after his afternoon nap - anywhere between 4pm to 5pm.  It may be a biscuit, it may be bits of bah kwa (dried sweet meat) and it can be with juice or chocolate milk.  Perhaps in our concern to make sure he eats, we have developed a habit of giving him too many snacks.  One way to keep track of how much he’s eating is to keep a food diary.

Sure, sometimes it isn’t the snacks.  Sometimes he just doesn’t like what’s offered at dinner and chooses not to eat.  So maybe what we need to do is have a consistent back-up to feed him in the event that he doesn’t like what is served at dinner.  And maybe what we need to do is take better note of the foods that he does enjoy eating and make sure we cook them more often?

You might have noticed that I have used the term “selective feeder” instead of “fussy eater” to give it a more positive spin.  They say that negative labels tend to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, such as calling a child naughty, so I’ve decided to remove this one by referring to my son as a “selective feeder”.  He’s not picky, he just knows what he wants.

If you have any other suggestions at all on feeding a selective feeder, feel free to post them in the comments below. 

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I used to think that Gavin’s interest in Thomas the Tank Engine was just a passing phase.  I figured that he would soon get over Thomas and move on to other things.

Not so…

If anything, his interest in Thomas has only escalated (sorry HL - looks like it’s going to be a Thomas cake for his second birthday after all…)

For instance, I was carrying him around the shopping mall when suddenly he started wriggling to get out of my arms.  Surprised, I put him down, only to watch him run away from me.  I followed him only to discover that he had spotted this in the distance:

Another time, when I was carrying him, he started signing train.  I started scanning around wondering where he had seen Thomas.  Spotting a picture of Elmo, I thought he had made a mistake.  “Oh, there’s Elmo,” I said.  But he signed train again more insistently.  Later I discovered the balloon with a picture of Thomas on it.  Yes, my son has sharp eyes.

Yesterday, my SIL2 and I took Gavin for lunch after our swim and Gavin kept signing train.  He wanted his small Thomas and Friends figurines that had been given to him from his friend Jack and the wooden Thomas train that his godmother had given him.  Since I wasn’t expecting to go shopping, I didn’t bring my bag.  Needless to say, Gavin was terribly upset - which didn’t help because he was also very tired after the swim.

Last night, we went to Jusco at the Alpha Angle.  Hubby set him down on the ground only to have him tearing off towards the Thomas section where he sat and eyed the Thomas toys with a longing that nearly broke Daddy’s heart. 

Hubby and I were talking when hubby realised Gavin was saying something.  He had been looking at the individual trains and he was naming them.  He held the Henry train and said something that distinctly sounded like “Henry.”  Later he pointed to James and said “James.”  I didn’t even realise he had learned the names to Thomas’ friends.

Unfortunately, he still can’t say “Thomas” but he says “train” and signs “train” to indicate he wants to play with Thomas.

Quite frankly, I never thought Thomas was all that educational, but I suppose if it inspires Gavin to learn and if it entertains him and keeps him in his seat, then I suppose he really is “a very useful engine”.

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