Huda is now 26.5 months and I have not written much about her lately. So here's her progress report (which I planned to do since last year) .
Hmm. Where shall I start? I think I shall write whatever comes to mind but do note that I cannot gush about my own child in public. I have that asian parent mentality - whatever that is. (I created that term myself so congratulations if you can accurately figure out what my big problem is.)
Huda is a happy child. She does not tell me that but I assume so from her actions.
She's comfortable being with familiar people. In such situations, she will touch everything, run about, climb, blabber, make a mess and all other normal toddler-like actions. She's still the same in unfamiliar surroundings as long as familiar people are with her. But when someone new appears, she will grab my legs and hide behind them. She normally needs about one hour to get used to new people. That, I don't mind. Because it means she's a lot more manageable when we visit someone's place. Imagine the headache I'll face if all she wants to do when we reach someone's house is run run ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!
Huda cries when she doesn't get what she wants and when she's tired but still refuses her nap. I think that's the same for almost all kids. Sometimes, however, she'll throw tantrums when scolded. Her caregivers (her grandparents and all members of her grandparents' household) and her parents have absolutely no qualms scolding her when she has done something wrong. When she's scolded, she'll do any one of these three things.
a. Try to change the subject by asking for 1) milk; 2) water; 3) any random family member who’s not at the scene of the crime
b. Throw her toys onto the floor which will get her an even bigger scolding
c. Run to me and hug me or hang on to my leg if I’m standing and ignoring her (this happens a lot if I’m the one doing the scolding)
She's saying a lot more words now. She surprised me a few weeks ago when she pointed to a man jogging and said, "Joo-ging." Ah. It's good to know that pointing out to what people are doing and telling her the names of the actions repeatedly work. She's also (finally!) forming 3-word sentences and sometimes 4-word sentences. We have not heard any 5-word sentences so far. She's mostly a Malay-speaking child because we are trying very hard to speak Malay to her. We believe that living here in Singapore, it is easier to pick up English than our own mother tongue. But that doesn't mean we don't speak English to her. It's just that we speak Malay to her a lot more. We are trying to develop good language habits in her. When we speak to her, we try not to codeswitch between languages.
We hope that growing up, she will be effectively bilingual.
She is now more interested in people in her age group. When we reach her grandparents' place on Sundays, she will immediately join all the little people and run around with them. She also has an (unhealthy - according to her father who now has to revise his earlier decision not to allow Huda to talk to boys til she's 40) interest in a boy called James. James is a 4-year-old boy who lives in the next block. Almost every evening, he will be playing at the open space in front of his block with his younger brother and father. Every day, as we walk home and are about to reach our block, Huda will start asking me, 'Mana Chem?' (Where's Chem? - her best pronunciation of James' name) But when she sees James, she will just stare at him while James asks me many questions about Huda. Once we are some distance away from James, she will wave and shout out, 'Bye Chem!' Sheesh. I don't understand. She also likes Jie Jie and Mei Mei from next door. She often rushes to the door when she hears them coming home and will sometimes blabber with 3-year-old Jie Jie.
She's now drinking Pediasure and Friso. I'm not comfortable giving her Pediasure alone because Pediasure is not milk. The first item in the ingredients list is corn starch. I will have to rethink giving her Friso because Friso uses skimmed milk - which is not what I want her to have if I'm trying to fatten her up. I'm looking for milk which uses milk in its entirety, not throwing out the fatty bits. Any suggestions?
Eating is still a challenge. It's difficult trying to figure out her pattern. One Saturday, I made french toast topping it with cheese and she ate one entire slice of bread. The next Saturday, I made her the same thing and she only ate the cheese. Sometimes, she only has half a tablespoon of rice for dinner. I've even tried force-feeding. It works sometimes but doesn't work most of the times. She doesn't even like transfats-laden fries which out of desperation, I plied her with. I suppose, I should take that as good news.
She enjoys playing Lego and doing puzzle board games. She has no interest in dolls. Ocassionally, she likes her teddy bear. Her kitchen set is real cos she is allowed to raid two drawers in the kitchen. Once, one Lego block was thrown just outside our front gate. She ran to the kitchen, took a ladle and tried to scoop the Lego back into the house.
She loves balloons. We are in for an eardrum-piercing time if she sees another child with a balloon and she has none. I love going to shopping centres on weekends because there's always a balloon giveaway. We are now smarter. We have at least one balloon (defllated, of course) in our bags just in case some random kid happens to be carrying a balloon and we can't detect the source of the balloon.
Okay. So that's Huda for now. Of course, there's a lot more about her that I've not written about. I hope I'll write them down as soon as I remember them so that I'll have a snapshot of Huda at this stage in her life. And in years to come, she'll be able to read this and find out what she was like when she was a wee little girl.
