My dear Kendrick is now already 2years 9 mths old. What a lovely time it has been these couple of months as he has progressed quite a lot in his speech, the things he knows and understands, what he likes or don't like etc.
I guess one major developmental update is that he's around 80% toilet trained already. I started to train him to pee in the potty at around 2yrs 4mths. The timing was somehow quite right as he was able to control his pee and notify us of his need after a few rounds of training. Nevertheless, there were some mistakes we made - like how I made him pee sitting down initially. It took a while before he was willing to stand up and pee. Again, that happened just 1 day suddenly when I let him try to do so (prior to that he was unwilling). Perhaps he slowly understood that boys had to stand up and pee while girls sat down :) The next step was how to get him to pee in the toilet bowl as he was afraid to do so. In the recent 2 weeks, just by an opportunity when the potty was not accessible at the point he needed, I told him to try doing it in the toilet bowl. Again, this sudden willingness just took place out of the blue and from then on, Kendrick was not afraid of peeing in the toilet bowl. With that, we have tried a few times to bring him out without diapers and he managed to pee in public toilets :) So proud of you my son. But the biggest achievement that tops it all was that Kendrick finally tried to sit down on the potty to do his poo poo. This was really my headache as he had for a long time only poo-ed in his diaper while standing up. He had this psychological fear about sitting down. And just 1 week ago, he again surprised me by willing to sit down and try to poo it out (with a reward at the end if he did so). So with that, my little boy is really growing up fast!!! What's left is only the overnight toilet training which I think will take a while more....
On other aspects of his growth, Kendrick is really into words and numbers in recent months. He's learned to count from 1 to 100 and has started a little in addition and subtraction. Simple concepts of counting which he somehow picked up just after a few rounds of explaining to him. As for words, he's really into spelling now. This was also not something that I purposely taught him, but instead it just happened that he started to want to recognise words and spell them. It could be due to school or due to the fact that reading books helped him to generate that interest and also playing the kids scrabble toy that we bought him. That's one of his favourite toys now. Kendrick is thus able to spell /recognise quite a few words like: cat, dog, car, bed, radio, piano, in, out, door, sun, moon, bear, the, pig, cow, zebra, tiger, lion, top, pot, hat, one - to - ten, etc. It's really quite interesting to see him suddenly grow in leaps and bounds. The way he talks to us now also makes him sound like a sensible 'little adult'. Conversations with him are never boring :) In fact, being with him is never a quiet moment too unless he is sleeping. This little boy is really talkative.
In terms of his behaviour towards strangers, well I must say that this still needs some time for improvement. He's still quite a shy boy in front of strangers. Getting him to greet neighbours or other unfamiliar people is really tough. But on the other hand, I guess once he overcomes the initial fear, he will start talking and talking like he does among family members.
So much more to teach and nurture this boy... I can only ask for more patience for him. At times it's just so easy to get angry and threaten him. But I guess I can never stay angry at Kendrick for long cos he's just so adorable in our eyes :)
I guess one major developmental update is that he's around 80% toilet trained already. I started to train him to pee in the potty at around 2yrs 4mths. The timing was somehow quite right as he was able to control his pee and notify us of his need after a few rounds of training. Nevertheless, there were some mistakes we made - like how I made him pee sitting down initially. It took a while before he was willing to stand up and pee. Again, that happened just 1 day suddenly when I let him try to do so (prior to that he was unwilling). Perhaps he slowly understood that boys had to stand up and pee while girls sat down :) The next step was how to get him to pee in the toilet bowl as he was afraid to do so. In the recent 2 weeks, just by an opportunity when the potty was not accessible at the point he needed, I told him to try doing it in the toilet bowl. Again, this sudden willingness just took place out of the blue and from then on, Kendrick was not afraid of peeing in the toilet bowl. With that, we have tried a few times to bring him out without diapers and he managed to pee in public toilets :) So proud of you my son. But the biggest achievement that tops it all was that Kendrick finally tried to sit down on the potty to do his poo poo. This was really my headache as he had for a long time only poo-ed in his diaper while standing up. He had this psychological fear about sitting down. And just 1 week ago, he again surprised me by willing to sit down and try to poo it out (with a reward at the end if he did so). So with that, my little boy is really growing up fast!!! What's left is only the overnight toilet training which I think will take a while more....
On other aspects of his growth, Kendrick is really into words and numbers in recent months. He's learned to count from 1 to 100 and has started a little in addition and subtraction. Simple concepts of counting which he somehow picked up just after a few rounds of explaining to him. As for words, he's really into spelling now. This was also not something that I purposely taught him, but instead it just happened that he started to want to recognise words and spell them. It could be due to school or due to the fact that reading books helped him to generate that interest and also playing the kids scrabble toy that we bought him. That's one of his favourite toys now. Kendrick is thus able to spell /recognise quite a few words like: cat, dog, car, bed, radio, piano, in, out, door, sun, moon, bear, the, pig, cow, zebra, tiger, lion, top, pot, hat, one - to - ten, etc. It's really quite interesting to see him suddenly grow in leaps and bounds. The way he talks to us now also makes him sound like a sensible 'little adult'. Conversations with him are never boring :) In fact, being with him is never a quiet moment too unless he is sleeping. This little boy is really talkative.
In terms of his behaviour towards strangers, well I must say that this still needs some time for improvement. He's still quite a shy boy in front of strangers. Getting him to greet neighbours or other unfamiliar people is really tough. But on the other hand, I guess once he overcomes the initial fear, he will start talking and talking like he does among family members.
So much more to teach and nurture this boy... I can only ask for more patience for him. At times it's just so easy to get angry and threaten him. But I guess I can never stay angry at Kendrick for long cos he's just so adorable in our eyes :)
Some recent photos: Here's one after his hair cut. Decided to cut a bit shorter with a bit more slope for him. His hair can grow out thick quite fast
Hugging M&Ms!
Kendrick 'upgrades' to boy's underwear :P
