Series of picture showing how the two little ones played together. Kai liked to demonstrate that he is older than xuan, he would say 哥哥拿，给哥哥，妹妹听etc etc

Some milestones for the little one:

At 9 month Xuanxuan
- waved her little hand and said “bye bye”
- Knew what was“hi-5”. When we said “hi-5” she would raise her little hands to touch yours
- clapped her hands
- waved her arm when she enjoyed songs
- could Waves goodbye
- able to blow kisses and repeat act if praised
- could sit on her own independently
- still not crawling yet (she a bit “lazy to crawl leh)
- could stand while holding onto supports (eg table, chair, little kitchen)
- like to socialize, smiled when she saw familiar and wanted to go out of the house “badly”. She would follow anyone, even strangers.
- no longer afraid of strangers, she would not cry when she was being carried by “strangers”
- jumping and bouncing” happily when she was happy and excited
- still have only two little teeth, the two upper teeth were still hidden.
- love cereal and porridge more than milk.
- know how to “snatch” things and “fight” with 哥哥.- etc etc many thing which mommy could not list all down

At 27 month Kaikai
- could walk, run super proficiently and fast.
- could climb, crawl, hops and anything that involved physical strength very well
- could do somersault.
- jumped independently (both legs leave the floor on his own) and proud of his achievement
- he knew the meaning of “proud” and would show his “proud & happy” look when we praised him even though he wanted to hide it.
- could hold pencil well and do colouring (scribbling)
- able to said A-Z (80%), 1-14 (90%)
- recognised most of the fruits, vegetables, farm and wild animals
- can sing simple song, (50%) eg ABC song, Oh where has my little dog gone, the wheel on the bus etc.
- recognized some colours, some shape
- loved pictures flashcards, he has three favorable sets and he was able to read and recognized 90% of them.
- spoke with simple sentences of 4 to 5 words. Talk lots at home, learned well and liked to imitate people.
- still very shy when he met strangers. Need 10-20mins of warming up time when expose him to a new environment
- has good memory, just need to bring him to a place once and he can vividly remembered the direction. Just introduced memory games to him and he like it.
- able to follow simple instruction and get “work” done.
- very mature (for his age) and sensitive (he could sense adult mood and his environment pretty well and stubborn (probably he still could not fully understand what adult wants)
- Knows words for urine and bowel movements e.g. “wee-wee” or “poo-poo”
- Etc etc …….

Irregular school attendance

13 Nov 07

After attending class for 2 days, Kaikai was down with sickness for more than a week. Today is his third class. Papa took 2 hours off to send him to school. Xuanxuan was sick on 29 Oct 07 as well (same day as Kaikai) but she recovered pretty fast yet Kaikai took so long. Sigh!!

I was told that, Kaikai refused to stay alone so 婆婆 has to sit at one side of the classroom while Kaikai played happily.

婆婆said Kaikai was the smallest size among all children in his class. Mommy agreed with the comment after seeing a few of his classmates. Kaikai appeared even “smaller” after his sickness. Now he refused to drink milk, everyone has tried all means to make his golden mouth open, took a sip on his milk. Last night, Kaikai slept without drinking his milk and he reacted the same way tonight. So mommy took out one of the “playdough” set mommy has bought earlier to interest him. He was totally engrossed with using roller, cutter and scissors to cut dough. This was when mommy slowly fed him with milk cereal. Sigh… what a difficult task, more tiring than work. Why he was such a fussy eater…..:(


14 Nov 07

Mommy took half day leave to company Kaikai to school. It was raining heavily so there were only two kids (Kaikai and a little girl named Joanna). Teacher Joyce was on MC so another teacher took over the class. Kaikai refused to let mommy go for the first one hour. So mommy hang around there for a while. When he was more settled down, mommy told him she went out for a while and he said ok. So mommy went outside waiting for him. By the time kai was released from school he was all smile. Hope tomorrow would be a good day too. keeping fingers cross....

Wedding Day N Dinner

11 Nov 07 was mommy cousin’s （建才）wedding. So whole day we hang around 婆婆’s house. Kaikai and Xuanxuan were handsomely and prettily dressed up for the day (tea-ceremony) and evening. I even got a stocking for Xuan heee... so far so good, she has no complaint.

I forgot to bring camera so I didn’t capture any day photo but I managed to capture a few night photo of Kaikai and Xuanxuan. Xuanxuan was fascinated by the balloon and she kept stretching out her two little hands to catch them. I thought my little girl would be scared by the big crowd (xuanxaun 怕生), surprising, she was all smiles and cheery, “shouting” out to people. She didn’t give us any headaches. I’m pleased with her performance

凯凯's first day in a formal playgroup

Picture of Kaikai's first formal school bag and water bottle.
Zekai’s first day in a formal playgroup. Mommy took one day leave to bring Kaikai to playgroup and oriented 婆婆 on the school environment.

Normally Kaikai would sleep until 9.30am and on this special day he has to wake up at 7.45am. A big change to his sleeping time. We spent 30mins to get his off his yaolan then fed him milk and finally dressed him up. Kaikai refused to wear uniform. 婆婆 and mommy managed to get him in his full set of uniform and we thought “work done”, who know, he pulled his pant down and wanted to wear his casual pant. That was around 8.45am and class supposed to start at 8.45am (supposed to be 8am if we wanted him to have breakfast at playgroup but 8.45am if he has breakfast at home. We chose to feed him at home).

Pictures of Kaikai dressing up in his formal uniform, the very first uniform in his life. Mommy must captured all these wonderful memories and showed him when he was older.

Finally mommy, 婆婆and a happy Kaikai went for his school.

Kaikai’s form teacher was called Ms Joyce Lee and Chinese teacher was 李老师 (same surname that’s why婆婆was confused). Teacher Joyce briefed mommy the admin procedure, course curriculum and communication mode. The class started with only 4 children, including KaiKai. It supposed to have 8 of them but teacher Joyce said at playgroup level a lot of the children did not have 100% class attendance and especially in Nov and Dec when it was a holiday season.

Mommy felt that this was a good time to get Kaikai familiar with the place and teacher could spend more time with him since there were lesser children. By next year in N1, there would be 12 children to 1 teacher and I believed at that time teacher might not have that much of time to spend with Kaikai. So choosing to enroll Kaikai at this time was still a good choice.

The whole session goes on well.

1 Kaikai started with playing “outdoor”, then they shift to his playgroup classroom,
2 Teacher Joyce play nursery rhythms, play toys, asked children to pack toys
3 Drinking water time. All 4 children including Teacher Joyce would sit around the table and drink water from the water bottle. Kaikai who normally does not like to drink water follow what other children were doing.
4 李老师 bring out play dough and all 4 children sit around table and start cutting dough

Throughout the session, mommy sat quietly and observed, Kaikai did look at mommy occasionally for assurance and will start playing again.

While playing dough, mommy pretends to go toilet and let Kaiaki stayed with the teacher after telling him. When mommy was back, teacher said Kaikai was doing very well; he sat there quietly cutting his dough. Mommy was pleaseJ))

5 around 10.15pm, teacher Joyce come in again
6 She let the children played toys while checking their diaper
7 Mommy again informs Kaikai she needs to go out. Mommy stayed outdoor till 10.45pm. When mommy walked in, she saw a cute little kaikai, carried a water bottle across his shoulder while another hand dragging his school bag which is about half of his size saying” 回家咯“ give me a shy smile when he saw me.

Teacher Joyce said Kaikai just gave her a hug. One of the little boy “Rayson” thot I was a teacher, asked me to help him to carry bag and hug me. So I gave him a hug as well with Kaikai starring at me with wide eye.

Overall, I’m happy and proud of Kaikai for his performance on his first day. There was no tear but all smile. I hope this will continue. Next week will be a challenging week as Kaikai will be all alone… I will have to keep my finger cross.

P/s : I only saw three out of seven classmates. Out of this three, one is very active, and he pushed Kaikai twice pretty hard while Teacher Joyce was busy. Kaikai looked at me but when I give him an encouraging smile, he was happy again and walked away. Hope the other four classmates would be good to Kaikai as well.