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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Gavin has got new career aspirations…  Since he was born, he has wanted to be:

• a garbage disposer
• a cleaner
• a telephone operator
• a dancer
• a model
• a footballer
• a delivery boy; and
• a chef

Well, they do say that a child’s attention span is short and his passions change with the winds. 

Lately, his aspiration is to become a shelf sorter…  Here he is sorting the toy shelf at Times Bookshop in Pavillion:

And the Thomas toys at Toys ‘R’ Us (I forget the name of the mall but it’s one of the newer ones in JB):

As much as I hope he would aim higher as he grows up, the hubby and I have agreed that we will encourage Gavin to pursue his dreams, whatever they may be (although there’s nothing that says I can’t do a little bit of guiding - no pushing, just guiding ;)). 

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I took Gavin for his trial gym class at Kizsports yesterday. 

In short, it was disasterous.

Well, not quite as disasterous as Gymboree since we managed to salvage the situation with a bit of fun at playland.

We arrived early and one of the staff manning the reception lead us to the gym room.  The parents and children from the previous class were still inside so the room so perhaps it brought flash backs of A’s party in Gavin’s mind because he immediately did not want to go in.  When I persisted and walked in, his fussing turned into crying.

I took him back out and let him play on a car ride for a while as I wondered how I was going to get him back into the room without the howling.  Shortly after, the parents and children from the previous class started clearing the room leaving behind only one girl and her mother.  I decided to try again. 

Spying a ball in the room, I asked Gavin if he would like to play with it.  He nodded.  We went back into the room and he started to explore, albeit cautiously.  He was okay until the instructor called everyone (which was the girl and her mother, Gavin and me) to form a circle.  She put on some music and sang songs, but Gavin didn’t want anything to do with it.

Despite enticing him with Toby and Percy (two Thomas and Friends trains that Jack had given him as a souvenir from his trip down to Singapore), he still wanted to leave the room.  Not wanting him to leave Kizsports with a bad memory of the place (there are only so many of these playschools around so I can’t have him hating all of them or we’ll have no where to go) I managed to coax him into playing at Playland - which is basically like a groovy indoor playground. 

Gavin discovered the ball pit where he sat for large part of the time we were in there.  It was only after watching some kids come down the slide that I could convince him to leave the ball pit to explore the rest of the playground.  It was about then that I began to realise my age when my knees started hurting from crawling through the tunnels and I struggled to keep up with my toddler. 

Although it was fun reliving my childhood, it was also thoroughly exhausting.  I’m sure I would have been thrilled to bits playing in an environment like Playland as a child, but doing so as an adult is a completely different experience altogether.  On a positive note, by the time we left, Gavin seemed in better spirits and he agreed to come back to Kizsports again in future.

It seems strange that Gavin can be so sociable in most scenarios - he’s friendly with adults and kids.  He loves music and dancing.  He likes to play at the playground and similar structures.  And yet, he hates going to gym class.  The theory is that he finds the environment threatening with its large congregation of kids with their parents.  The instructor’s recommendation is for us to come a little earlier the next time so he can familiarise with the room before it starts to fill up with other children and parents.

Hubby suggested I let Gavin play at Playland before attending his next gym class.  The other suggestion was for Gavin to go with another child that he is familiar with.  My friend CC and her daughter will be back in Malaysia in September and she was planning to take her daughter to the music classes.  Perhaps Gavin will more keen to attend class with more familiar faces for company?

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The “Terrible Twos” is a phase that a child goes through that usually begins after turning one.  It peaks at the age 18 months and can last up until a child turns three.  There are essentially two reasons why it occurs:

1. In the second year, most children gain mobility and with mobility comes freedom and independence.  A child of that age begins to assert himself - he’s testing boundaries by pushing limits and seeing how far he can go before his parents reign him in.  It is also frustrating for him to be met with “no” on a constant basis when previously everything he wanted to do was encouraged.  Think about how we encourage our infants to crawl, to walk, to learn through exploration and to speak.  Suddenly, we’re telling them to stop touching things, that there are places they can’t go and we’re telling them to be quiet.  Now that’s got to be pretty confusing to a toddler.
2. In the second year, most children are still unable to communicate their needs and desires effectively and the inability to articulate themselves is intensely frustrating.  Think of how you would feel in a country with a foreign language you don’t speak and you cannot tell anyone what you need because they don’t understand you.  That’s exactly how a toddler feels but a toddler hasn’t the ability to reason and being understanding about it so it’s even worse for him. 

To manage the first, it is important to give your toddler a lot of warning before something is about to happen.  Just because he’s a child with a short attention span doesn’t mean he hasn’t got any feelings.  Particularly when I know I’m about to do something he won’t like, I make sure I tell him.  I learned my lesson the hard way when I tried to sneak off without telling him and I’ve come to realise that honesty really is the best policy especially when it comes to your toddler.

As for the “nos” we have to say when our toddlers get into the cutlery drawer, attempt to play with the power sockets, trying to jump into the pond, etc.  I’m afraid there’s not much you can do to avoid these frustrations, however, I usually find that the concern and fear in my voice is enough to make him realise I’m doing it for his own good.  I occasionally have to deal with a screaming and howling toddler, but the episodes are lessening somewhat.

With regards to frustrations due to the inability to articulate their wants and needs, teaching Gavin sign language has really helped me a lot.  For instance, he can sign “shoes” to tell me something about his shoes is bothering him otherwise I wouldn’t know why he was being fussy. 

Then there was the other day when he wanted to watch “Finding Nemo”.  He started fussing and crying but I didn’t know why.  Although I was a little slow on the uptake, I eventually noticed that he was signing “fish” and immediately realised that he wanted to watch “Finding Nemo”.  Now if he hadn’t been able to sign “fish”, who knows how long that little tantrum would have persisted.

The other sign he often uses is “train”.  Thomas is currently his favourite toy and he often wants his Thomas book and train.  He has got quite a number of words in his repertoire and he copies what we say occasionally, but his speech is still limited and signing still plays an important role to help us understand what he wants.

Teaching Gavin how to sign has a number of benefits:

• it provides him with a means of communication when he lacks the words to express himself verbally
• it helps train his motor coordination
• it trains his observation skills
• it offers us an entertaining game to play in the car
• it has made me more observant to his cues as I try to understand what he wants

For any parent wondering about whether to teach their infants sign language - I highly recommend it.  You can start as early as four months and keep persisting with it even if you don’t see any results.  When your child starts signing back, you will be amazed by how much was picked up by your child.

These tips may not resolve all your Terrible Twos problems but it will certainly help lessen the pain of it.

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Ever since he was young, Gavin has had a thing for cars.  From his Daddy’s car magazines to the little toy cars he gets from the Vietnamese Beef Noodle shop to the toy models his Dad got for him and the rides in his Ah Kong’s car… 

When we’re in the toy shop, if he isn’t busy looking at Thomas toys, he’s usually looking at the toy cars.  He also learned to sign “car” as one of his first signs.  He loves sitting in the driver’s seat and can be entertained for minutes (we’re talking about a toddler here so minutes is good) while he pretends to drive the car.

He is definitely his Daddy’s boy since Daddy also has a penchant for cars…

The following movie is dedicated to my SIL who’s been asking for more videos of Gavin:

I think she was very moved recently when I told her Gavin pointed to her photo and said, “Koh Koh,” which just means “paternal aunt” in Hokkien.

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About a week ago, Gavin started rearranging the dining table chairs into a row.  A couple of days later, he did this to the stools in the KLCC Isetan nursing room:

I wish I had recorded his efforts from the start but I was busy adjusting the straps on his bag so I didn’t even realise he was rearranging the stools until it was almost done.

Gavin’s need to order is so particular that he even rearranges the remote controls on the table so they’re all neatly aligned.  After throwing the rubbish into the bin, he adjusts the bin so the stepper is exactly ninety degrees to the wall. 

Sometimes I wonder if this is just a developmental phase or is it an inherent characteristic in a child manifesting itself? 

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When an infant becomes a toddler, one of a parent’s biggest growing pains is finding ways to wear out an energetic child who fights sleep because he wants to play all day.  With a new sense of freedom of movement, a toddler suddenly realises that there is a big world out there and not enough hours in the day to explore it.  Hence the reluctance to sleep and the boundless energy powered by adrenaline.

The Discipline Book by Sears also states that one of the reasons why a child plays up is because he hasn’t had enough “play time”.  Simply taking a child out to the park so he can run about and let loose all that pent up energy can help a child behave more appropriately at home.

For these two reasons, I started taking Gavin out on a regular basis to play.  I find that on the days he goes out, he usually naps earlier and he seems more agreeable in general. 

Ideally, I would prefer to take him to the park on a regular basis, but the weather being what it is means that it is usually too hot by the time Gavin wakes up.  Aside from that, the smog and pollution, the security issues and finding a suitable time to go also make it rather unconducive.

The next best thing is to take him shopping - which usually works a treat in wearing him down sufficiently so that he doesn’t fight me so vigorously when it is time for him to take his afternoon nap.  One of my favourite shopping malls to take him to is Midvalley Megamall because the Toys ‘R’ Us has a little play area outside consisting of their demo cubby houses. 

When he gets bored of that, there are the slides in Robinson’s children’s section in The Gardens.  Aside from these, some of Gavin’s favourite shops are there - namely “Brickboy”, the Lego shop in The Gardens; MPH bookshop; Toys ‘R’ Us; and ELC, the Early Learning Center.  By the time we get through those, Gavin is usually half asleep in my arms.

Taking Gavin out on a regular basis has several benefits:

1. We get lots of practice getting him to sit in his carseat.
2. It also means he spends less time in front of the TV (since he would inevitably be watching TV if he remained at home all day).
3. He gets to interact with other people (okay, so it is mostly the shop assistants and strangers that he chooses to wave at).
4. He gets exercise from running around.
5. All his senses are stimulated by an engaging environment which is good for his development.
6. He falls asleep more easily so we don’t have to do battle when it comes to nap time.
7. I don’t go mad trying to keep him out of the cupboards and drawers at home since he has an appropriate outlet for his curiosity.

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Some time back, Gavin was playing with a drum his Dad bought for him.  While playing, he accidentally dropped the drum onto my toes and boy did it hurt.  While I was moaning in pain, hubby said to Gavin, “Say ’sorry’ Gavin.  You gave Mummy an ‘owie’.”

Gavin burst into tears and started crying.  I looked at him in surprise, distracted momentarily from my pain.  I thought I was the one that was hurt!

Last night, while he was nursing, he playfully bit my nipple - okay, the action was playful but it really hurt.  I looked at him sternly and said, “No biting!”  After a while, he asked for milk again and I said, “No.  You’re just playing and Mummy’s in pain.”

Then hubby said, “Mummy’s got an ‘owie’.”

Again Gavin burst into tears.  I admit, I’m still confused but this is how I’ve decided to take it:

When you have a toddler, you have to look for the silver lining in every cloud or you might just go mad.  So this is me being grateful that I have such an empathic son who feels my pain so much that he even cries for me.

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Hubby had an old school friend, T, over for a couple of days.  While we were taking T around town, he related a story about how his nephew, J, was taught that whenever he entered the house, he had to take his hat off.  Ever since then, whenever anyone entered the house, J would pip up, “Hats off in the house!”  Even if they were just popping back into the house to pick up something they had forgotten, they would have to remove their hats to please J.

Recently, I have discovered that Gavin has picked up the same bossy habit.  Since he could walk and started wearing shoes, we have enforced the rule of “shoes off inside the house” and “shoes on if you want to go outside - no shoes, no going out”. 

A couple of days ago, Gavin started making a huge fuss and we ran to see what was happening.  He was watching our maid clean the porch and she had removed her slippers because she didn’t want them to get wet as she hosed down the porch.  Gavin kept squealing, pointing to the maid and signing, “shoes”.  He wouldn’t stop until the maid put her slippers back on.

I guess it was his way of saying, “No shoes, no going out!”

When you have a toddler in the house, there are no exceptions to the rules…

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