jerry is 19 months!

I have been tardy on this space! with the pregnancy moving into the third tri (hello week 30!), work, the demise of 2 family members recently (all within a week) and a hyper toddler, my hands have been pretty full.

 

and before I know it.. my boy turned 19 months today.

the most significant part was that he lost all his babiness while I werent looking!

I looked through the pictures in the past 3 months and its like.. he suddenly transformed. I kinda miss the round chubby cheeks that he used to spot in the pictures above.

he now looks and acts like a little adult, so I thought I better post his milestones before I get whirled another round of frenzy when the new baby pops again. we ain’t that far off now!

 

speech and comprehension wise, I noticed a sudden leap in this aspect. while his comprehension level has always been evident, he has since learnt to rebuke us in his own little ways, with his favourite phrase as….”Noooooooooooooooo!”

 

he sings along to songs and jiggles and dances to the songs he loves, and has certainly picked up a big chunk vocabulary in the past month, like a sudden major leap in development! I’ll try to list down the list of words he now knows but he surprises me everyday with new phrases!

 

mama
papa
ah goo (my brother/my uncles)
mum mum (eat/food/drink)
neh neh (milk, and sometimes water)
gai gai (go out)
Shie (shoe, in Chinese)
apple
ball
cat (the above 3 sometimes come complete with the phonics sounds when he’s in the mood.. ah..ah.. apple.. brr..brr..ball…ke..ke..cat!)
dog (hit and misses on this sometimes)
elephant
gorilla
hat
igloo
juice
bird
spy..der (spider)
two
octo (octopus)
no more
oh oh (when he does something wrong or drop something onto the ground)
bye bye
car
or or (sleep)
bong bong (bathe)
cliack cliack (mimicks the quaking of duck)
duck
bui bui (his eeyore plushie that he sleeps with daily)
nana (banana)
row row (as in row your boat..)
round
croco (crocodile)
kai (open.. door or drawers or anything like food jars)
gorgor (brother, what he calls his older cousin for now)
bloon (balloon)
turtle
bai (white)

 

thats what I could think of for now since I don’t actively track or note down his vocab but he can understand a whole lot more words and are able to point them out correctly, like the following..

 

lion
tiger
snake
monkey
giraffe
zebra
xsilly
fish
boat
bus
train
plane
taxi
rocket
rabbit
yan jing (eyes)
er duo (ears)
zhui ba (mouth)
Jiao (leg)
shou (hands)

 

he mostly picked them out from our daily conversations, from the songs we sing and the books that I read to him. I also realised he really likes spider (!!) and anything that looks remotely like it (like an ant) is also a spider. his favourite song is no doubt incy wincy spider and he signals the hand actions when I start singing or sometimes does it to get me to sing.

 

he has his routines and how he likes stuff to be done, like insisting my room door to be opened when he wants to go down for his afternoon naps (so that he can sleep on my bed instead of sofa in living room). the first thing he does when I reach home (after greeting me with a wide smile) is to run to the doorstep of my room and wait patiently for me to open the room door so that he can clamber onto my bed and roll around.

 

he has also started tugging my hands/fingers hard and brings me around the house to get what he wants.. like milk, food, drinks, apple (for me to play songs/video on my MacBook – he recognises the apple logo) or simply.. gai gai.

 

he needs to at least gai gai a gazillion times a day. he also loves to run out of the house when the main door is not shut, heads to the lift landing, presses the button for lift or simply climb up and down the stairs himself. he also knows his way around the neighbourhood and can navigate himself from my lift lobby to the playground (across a basketball court and badminton court and a flight of stairs) all by himself. he also can climb up the stairs to the slide, and then slide himself down! he’s a scary little one, I tell ya. one moment you ain’t looking, the next second he’s gone off for his expedition. I have serious thoughts about gating my corridor but im sure my neighbours would not hear of it as much as they adore him since its a common corridor that we share.

bye bye! I’m off to play!

yes. he also knows the concept of wearing shoes when going out, and often steal ours because his shoes are out of his reach (and too complicated for him to know how to wear for now). so far, its been only wearing one side of the shoes though. hilarious.

 

he’s so active and ‘vocal’ these days, I wish I could have a remote and just pause him for a while. he goes into my bathroom, pulls his tub out to the floor, and then throws in duckies and sit in the tub and insist on a ‘bong bong’ and as with all toddlers, a MELTDOWN always looms when he doesnt get what he wants. I sometimes can squirrel my way out from the bong bong scenario and distracts him with something else.. but a gai gai request has been the most frowned upon (and feared) because nothing.. and I mean NOTHING will get you out of it. the meltdowns can even last more than 30 minutes and its seriously tiring for a normal being, much less a heavily pregnant one like me. I pretty much go bonkers myself in that situation but usually don’t give in until someone relents and bring him out because of the big din he is causing (the gai gai request could sometimes be in the middle of the night like 4am in the morning!).

 

at times like that, I shudder about the thought of having 2 under twos when baby no 2 pops out.

food wise, he has ‘graduated’ from his baby foods and are eating what we are eating mostly, but usually the bland bits or no sauce bits. while his daily diet is mostly beef/fish/chicken porridge, he’s quite an eater and would usually try something for the first time before deciding if he likes it by spitting it out and saying no thereafter, or asking for more. he loves spaghetti and noodles, and breads. he has also unfortunately, tried ice cream, some mints (my tictac that he stole while rummaging through ny work bag) and sweets (offered by well-meaning strangers/relatives who probably wants to make a kid’s day much to my chagrin), dried longans (!!), coke (!!!) and all sort of sugared drinks that are left lying around in functions like parties or my dinner table top. he is quite adept in climbing onto table tops in all means possible and he usually reaches out to what he set his eyes on, no matter how high.. so he have stolen sips of those carbonated/sugared drinks while we werent looking. I have loads of videos on that and maybe, I’ll try and find time to load one or two soon to share. its just scary to see/know what he’s up to sometimes.

self feeding and making a mess!

 

in the past month, his most significant event is probably the trip to Hong Kong where I think he adapted quite well despite being sick 2 days before the trip. that said, hk is also quite similar to sg and its a short flight so I guess its a good place to go for a start. I’m gonna attempt US next while I am on.my maternity leave but I really have to see how things go around with 2 kiddos.

 

I lost count on the number of haircuts that he has had. this is probably the 7th or 8th haircut of his.. we stopped going to the junior league hair salon. we found it costly, the cut wasn’t fantastic, always had long queues and I didn’t really like the fact that they play the DVDs to keep the kids’ attention in order to cut the hair. I usually request that they don’t play the video during the cut anyway. Plus, it is almost 3 times the price as compared to derrick’s stylist.

out of bed look.

babiness all gone!

I think the baby inherited my eyes and red luscious lips! heh.

with my sec school pals and all the kiddos. probably the only photo that the kiddos with have together since ivy has gone off to be a sahm in France.

stealing the limelight in front of camera.

he loves balloons!!

breakfast at mcdonalds! we let him munch on some bits of the scrambled egg and my hot cakes to keep him occupied.

and of cos, he must have a balloon as well.

he loves water. whether its for drinking (i think he also inherited my genes for drinking loads of water), bathing or at the pool. sometimes, he pours the water from his bottles onto the ground to make puddles while we werent looking and then proceed to make splashes by jumping around or splashing it with his hands. he’s quite the cheeky monster in that sense!

 

weight wise.. its been a really slow journey. I stopped comparing him to the charts to suss out his percentilefor his age because it just makes me depressed. he’s has just crossed the 9.5kg mark, and for a 19 month old kid.. he pales in comparison to his peers, but I guess.. being healthy and happy is most important. mummy does still feel guilty at the pd’s office each time because the doc would always ask if he eats. 

 

milk wise, he’s been pretty stagnant in this aspect. he’s still taking 120ml feeds (i know right, its so little!) about 4 times a day – when he wakes, before his afternoon nap, before his evening nap (sometimes he skips this nap/milk feed) and before he goes to bed. I must say, despite drinking so little.. he at times waste quite a bit of milk and doesn’t finish.. so no chance of attempting to increase his milk feeds to ‘fatten’ him.

 

I have also realised that his drooling has improved heaps this month. not sure if it has got to do with his speech or his teething. he has about 16-18 teeth and looks pretty complete to me for now to chew down any tough meat. I know cos I almost lost my finger when I was attempting to wipe his teeth one day and he bit me really hard! ouch!

chilling out with great grandpa (and his walking stick).

my little nerdie. heh. I have about 1.5 month more or 2 to spend with him alone before his little brother pops out.

for now, he’s still the little baby and the smallest one. but I guess he’ll always be my special first born.

the one who acts like he’s the boss.