Thankfully Dadi is doing his Masters which involves looking at child development so he has been keep track of my development (cos Mami sorta gave up after a while - she say it is going too fast for her old brain.. tsk tsk)

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cognitive development:

  • reads books / recall certain texts in books/prints (e.g. whereabouts the picture of a ‘spider’ in a book, sometimes will be triggered by another activity that may have mentioned the word ‘spider’). but she does only refer to certain ‘key’ books that she’d read more often.
  • can recite to 20 and sometimes 25 in english, still trying to figure out the logic of 12-19 in mandarin. (10+1 kinnda logic). not necessarily understanding the math of anything more than 10 yet.
  • counting objects out 1 by 1 but usually double counts the 1st object she points to
  • exhibits more clearly long term memory. e.g. can remember and state some activities that she’d done over a few weeks ago e.g. remembering that i’d taught her how to play the abacus at ikea 3 days after. (upon seeing a picture of an abacus during a bedtime storytelling session, she took my finger and attempted to move the beads in the picture. and said play at chair cos she sat on a chair at ikea and played with the real abacus then). e.g. remembering that family friends bought her a birthday cake close to 3 weeks after the incident.
  • can remember more names of people like her playmates, and some of the family friends and relatives
  • exhibits preferences for TV programs and remembers their approx. show times (midday is sesame st., evening in the nite garden, or playschool)
  • but also starts to exhibit some degree of ‘forgetting’ e.g. drew blank responses from what we’d taught her previously (like location and names of some countries on the world map)
  • does not distinguish between english and mandarin text when she ‘reads’ aloud. but she is exhibiting an understanding that the alphabet is different from mandarin characters (through labeling exercises e.g. she does not pronounce 苹果when shown the word apple)
  • can play on her own for extended period of time approx. 20 min (she moves from activity to activity like talking to her plushes, reads books, rolls around the mat and walks around the apartment looking for objects/ walks to see the aquarium) gets longer should the TV be on
  • loves playing and building stuff with her megabloks (make robot! make jellyfish!, make choochootrain!)
  • remembers activities and their relations. e.g. swimming at bother in laws pool when we show her her swimming costume / us taking out the suitcase means taking an airplane / unfolding the blanket means sleeping / when seeing either of us resting, she’d lower volume in a learnt behavior and whispers ‘Papa sleeping, shhhhh’
  • she has more complex imaginary play (more props/plushes involved with clearer activities like cooking and having a meal play)
  • she starting to play with actual jigsaw puzzles
  • more aware of new sights and sounds and will CONSTANTLY ask about them (points and says ‘whazzat?’. sometimes will uses ‘whazzat’ to maintain interaction with us. )
  • knows the concept of big and small, left and right, short and tall, and most colours all these in both english and mandarin
  • can navigate confidently through my iphone and across the several pages of applications. she has learnt to switch off the phone whenever i asked for it back, or changes menu/closes / switches between apps on her own. she’s also beginning to try out other apps rather than just going for the usual ones like before
  • she loves anything with rhythmic beats (e.g. she turned on song on my iphone, drags out her 2 empty milk tins and started drumming to the beat / dancing to the jingle whenever she’s in a departmental store)

physical development:

  • toilet trained. can go on long periods without wearing diapers but she still has them on during naps and night time. she can hold the pee and poo rather well but gets reasonably upset when she really needs to go
  • right hand dominant, has to be reminded to use her left hand to support a bowl etc etc
  • getting good at playing with her megabloks though lego blocks are still too small for her
  • manages a more ‘holistic’ form of dancing (now doing the steps and waving hands) as compared to just moving her butt from side to side previously
  • manages to run at a steadier gait (loves chasing after pigeons) but still working on hopping
  • still not very confident when going about playing in playgrounds. wary of heights and the slide is not always something that she’ll try. though she now loves to get onto the swing
  • likes to climb steps and counts them when stepping
  • about 85 cm tall and 10.5 kg in weight

social & emotional development:

  • talks comfortably in front of strangers often saying hello and whats that/ what you doing, do this, come here. but often than not other kids do not respond but she didn’t seem to mind.
  • expresses her needs clearly, understands the concept of hugging and to a certain degree sharing/giving
  • stranger anxiety expressed through down turned eyes and bowed heads. especially so when in the company of elderly strangers. for unknown reasons, she tend not to warm up to the elderly
  • approaching terrible 2s hence more insistent on certain routines and preferences e.g. starts to dislike vegs but will still eat carrots and broccoli!
  • will keep or set things back to their original positions when asked & on most occasions she does that on her own. in fact she does get somewhat frustrated should she not get to keep stuff when she said she wants to
  • enjoys ‘reading’ aloud back to us / to herself and engages us with questions of her own (usually ‘whatzzat’ or some gibberish)
  • likes new experiences and material objects especially when is told that they belong to her e.g. new toys, clothes and shoes (she goes ‘whoa…’)
  • likes to pose for camera (she will prompt ’1,2,3 cheese’ and beams)
  • enjoys reactions of others, often expecting others to clap upon her completion of a song/dance routine and she’d join in the clapping. usually will repeat her ‘performance’ just to get the reactions

language development:

  • sings along with songs/jingles while watching tv shows
  • sings many complete verses from about 3 of her favourite songs to date, like 夜上海 and 月亮代表我的心. sings the whole of Twinkle twinkle little star (also the Mandarin version) and 拔萝卜. does attempt to parrot phrases from some other songs, usually doing a pretty good job with catching and singing the chorus.
  • learnt to converse more in Mandarin (probably from the exposure in the recent trips to China, HK & inevitably having watched quite alot of Mandarin cartoons like 喜洋洋)
  • recites about 80% of about 5-7 of her favourite nursery rhymes and 唐诗 on her own.
  • answers questions predominantly in english but her speech does contain both english and mandarin phrases. will answer in mandarin (if asked) after she answers in english. will answer in mandarin should the vocab was first introduced to her in mandarin (mental branding i suppose)
  • vocab increased in both english and mandarin, largely due to the traveling in the past 2 mnths.
  • makes remarks almost appropraitely with phrases she’d picked up from our speech. e.g.: she makes exclamations along with facial expressions and exaggerated body language such as ‘ i forget’ / 忘记了！/OH NO!/Is that so?/How bout dis wan?