新年快乐，虎年来了！

Happy CNY! We're not really into the whole CNY-dong dong chiang type of stuff. I've never really done visiting my whole life...well, maybe when I was little and my grandparents were still around, I might have gone with for abit of house hopping. But for the larger part of my life, I've never really visited anyone's homes during CNY. When HW and I got married, I was happy to learn he didn't have such a habbit either.
So I guess li'l K's gonna grow up without experiencing the whole 恭喜发财，红包拿来 thingy. Heck lah.I wanted to dress him up in traditional cheena garbs but I couldn't find anything I like. See, Keston is very tanned and so, he doesn't look good in deep, dark colours. Which means, the royal blue I like so much is out. He doesn't look good in the golden-yellowish tone normally seen on the boys' costumes either. And we couldn't really come to a conclusion what colour suits him...and so in the end, no ching chong costumes. Gah. We got a pigtail hat though, which he refused to wear. Ah well. No surprise there.I think the little boy really enjoyed having Daddy and Mummy with him for the past ermm...4.5 days. He's been babbling/talking more and really progressing with his puzzles. However, he's also developed some strange habbits. For a start, he says ball-ball with renewed vigour. HW swears he heard Keston say apple....and to be honest, I think I heard it a couple of times too when he was eating apple, but it's really soft so I can't be sure and don't want to be too optimistic.He's finally gotten round to playing with his wooden animal puzzles-- you know, those pieces of animals with wooden knobs where you place on designated spaces on a wooden board. He used to get so frustrated when he can't get the orientation right and can't fit in the animals and will proceed to just fling it aside. But now, he's so fast at fitting it all in. He can fit in 7 out of the 10 pieces...cos if we take all 10 pieces out, he gets no motivation in completing it. We have to leave a few pieces in. Well, he has done all 10 pieces before but most of the time, when we remove all the pieces he just turns away.
Last week I was trying to teach him to nod his head for yes. Like 'Wanna go gai gai?' and I'll man-handle his head and force him to nod...didn't really work :P Ironically, all of a sudden he's shaking his head. It's not 100% accurate yet but I'd say 70-80% of the time when he shakes his head, he really means no. When he wants to say yes, he just doesn't do a thing or tries to reach out instead.

The very undesirable habbit he'd started is banging his head. When he doesn't get what he wants, when he gets frustrated with whatever he's playing with, when he's mad at us...he sits on the floor and slowly drops his head to conk the floor. I've read that it's fairly common and not to give any reaction to it so he'd stop using it to get his way, but it's hard not to!

I didn't take much photos for him this year...cos a few days before CNY, he knocked his head massively and had a huge balugu in the middle of his forehead! :( It looks so horrible so I couldn't bear to take any photos. Seems like he always kenna some mishaps during CNY. Last year, he woke up on 初一 with massive mozzie bites all over his face! This year, a huge bruise on his forehead...sigh~

Closing the door...

As far as I can remember, Keston has always been afraid of closing doors. He seems to think we're gone forever whenever we attempt to close the kitchen door or the toilet door. He'd stand outside pounding on the door and crying his lungs out.

A few days ago, he was being naughty and kept walking through the kitchen, out of the back door to the washing area and touching the detergents. I kept scolding him and warning him but to no avail. In the end, I closed the door on him-- leaving him in the washing area by himself. The second the door clicked close, he wailed and screamed. It was only for a good 10 seconds and when I opened the door, he ran out and immediately pushed the door close. From then on, he no longer wanders into the washing area and would close that door whenever he sees it open! Maybe I should do the same when he walks into the kitchen...

The next day, I was trying to get him to nap but he kept getting up to walk. So I opened the room door and calmly said "You wanna play right? Ok go outside the room to play." He was grinning from ear to ear and happily walked out of the room. The moment he stepped out, I closed the door. Cue dramatic wailing. Again, I left it for a few seconds before I let him in again. And he guai guai climb on to the bed to settle down. Whenever he attempts to get down from the bed, I'd ask him if he wants to go outside again and he quickly gets back on the bed. Sometimes he goes as far as the door and I'd gamely open the door wide for him, but he'll quickly walk behind the door and push it shut. It's quite hilarious really and works wonderfully in disciplining him.

Developments of late + weaning off the pacifier

Over the past 2 months, Keston has picked up waving bye-bye followed by kiss-kiss. I was too lazy to say "Flying kiss", so it just stayed as "Kiss-kiss". Whenever we say bye bye, he'd wave his hands enthusiastically and when we say kiss-kiss, he'd bring his palm up to his mouth...sometimes followed by a slight wave at the direction of the recipent.

I don't think he quite understands the meaning of kiss yet. He thinks it means licking his palm! hehe! He's been quite consistent with these 2 commands, especially in the last month. He'd wave and kiss goodbye to our neighbour whenever he's done walking to and fro their gate to ours.

The cheeky boy now claps for himself whenever he thinks he's done something new/clever! The first time he walked down the steps (using the wall as an aid) without having to turn around and do the bum-first motion, he clapped in delight. When he started walking down a step without having his bum touch the ground, he also clapped for himself!

When I went through the developmental milestones at Babycenter just now, I realised that he has actually met all of the required skills, some of the emerging and advanced skills....all except for the speech-related ones! I didn't know throwing the ball overhand and underhand were considered advanced skills at 18months cos he's been doing it for awhile now.

He's also quite an expert at threading/lacing his little animal beads now. When we bought the set at Christmas, he wasn't interested. But after showing him a couple of times how to thread the beads, he'd attempt and succeed occassionally, but usually losing interest after 2 or 3 beads. I don't actually know when he became such an expert, but I'd leave the beads lying about and on occassions when I weren't looking, I'd turn back a while later to see the thread filled with beads.

Weaning off Pacifier
A while ago, Keston had been biting through his old pacifiers. When we were buying new pacifiers, I suddenly noticed that the last stage of pacifiers was 6mths-18mths. So technically, after turning 18mths....the pacifiers weren't suitable for him anymore! We kept mumbling yeah yeah must stop using pacifier, but neither of us were confident about it.

On 1 Feb (Monday), 4 days after Keston turned 18mths...as a joke, HW told Keston "Mummy said must stop using pacifier already so no more pacifier ok?". Obviously Keston didn't respond lah. And I was like errr yeah. That morning, HW still gave Keston his pacifier after his bath (cos he tends to start scrambling everywhere when we're drying him)...and I said "I thought no more pacifier?" He said "Tonight lah, you administer it." Right. I dunno where I garnered the courage, but that night I really didn't give K the pacifier. Just told him to go to sleep....he did fuss abit (no cries, just ee ee orr orr) but managed to fall asleep anyway. Usually when he stirs at night, he'd brush around the whole bed locating his pacifier, stuff it back in and go back to sleep. That night, when he tried looking for his pacifier and not finding it, he started whining in his subconscious state. I tried to resist but after 5 mins of not being able to get him to fall back into his deep sleep, I succumbed. Once the pacifier was in, he immediately went back to sleep. But when I tried to pull it out, he sucked on it even harder, unwilling to let go. Let him suck for a few minutes and took it out.

The 2nd day, K missed his morning nap cos he associates the pacifier to sleeping. No pacifier means not time to sleep. Because of that, he fell asleep v easily right after lunch. No pacifier required. That night, he didn't fuss...just fell asleep himself after scrambling around the bed for awhile.

3rd day. K took his morning nap after I pulled all the curtains to emulate night time. He also took his 2nd nap successfully. Night time as well.

I guess it was a success. Not as difficult nor scary as I thought!!!