Zachary is learning to say more words now. He can say “outside” - all the time to indicate that he wants to go outside, “up”, “chong chong” - Cantonese for bugs, “apple”, and “dong dong” - Cantonese for grandpa. He has also figured out (on his own) how to climb our tall kitchen counter chair by himself. He asked me for more milk the other day and I turned to get milk out of the refridgerator and poured it into his sippy cup. By the time I put the milk back into the refridgerator, he has climbed onto the chair and sitting with his hands on the kitchen counter waiting for his milk. He climbs just about anything that can be climbed. He also flipped on his Winnie-the-Pooh car and hurt himself face down on the floor. I asked him where he hurts and he told me his nose. Now that he understands me when I ask where he hurt himself, I can comfort him wherever it hurts. when I come home from work I would ask him where did he hurt himself today and he pulls up his pants to show me new and old bruises where he fell or bumped into something. It’s kinda cute but I feel bad for our little guy getting all bruised up.
This past weekend we took Zachary on a shopping trip to Kohls. He found these toy ball and bat sets there so much that he grabbed one of each color by himself and placed it inside our shopping cart. So we know that he has learned the concept that things we want goes inside a shopping cart. As we neared the cashiers, we secretly took out all but one ball and bat set for purchasing. Luckily Zachary was so happy that we are getting this blue ball and bat set that he forgot about the other colored sets. Before heading out to our next destination, Chris decided to stop by the Central Park in Santa Clara so that Zachary can go see some birds and ducks. As we are getting out of the car, Zachary insisted on holding his new blue bat and asked to have his cap put onto his head. He normally doesn’t like to wear hats and to ask to put it on him is totally weird. Does this have anything to do with the fact that he is holding a bat and he saw on TV baseball that a bat must accompany a cap?
Zachary’s 6 weeks older cousin Spencer from Shanghai is visiting us. Zachary is a bit taller than him and thinks that he should be the leader. Zachary tries to protect him from Hershey because Spencer is afraid of dogs. Zachary tried a couple times holding Spencer’s hand to go somewhere too, just like a big brother.
Zachary was very good and went to sleep around 10pm last night. This gives us about an hour to catch up on our addictive Korean drama series. Then around 3am, the flashing screen of our bedroom TV woke us up. We found little Zachary standing in front of the TV eyes wide awake. We pulled him into our bed and made him comfortable with pillows so that he can fall asleep while watching TV. I also turned the channel to the Chinese Jade channel so he can learn Chinese and less likely any violence would appear on the show. I tried to turn off the TV half an hour later because Zachary started to doze off. But as soon as I turned it off, he complained and I had to turn it back on again. I am a light sleeper and cannot fall asleep with the flashing TV and sounds. I tried again to turn off the TV 15 min later and luckily Zachary didn’t complain this time, though he was not fully into sleep. 5 min later in the dark, Zachary pulled his blanket over his head and started playing peek-a-boo with me. I couldn’t resist because his laughter is so sweet. That went on for about 15 min before he finally tired out and went into deep sleep. Of course Chris, being a heavy sleeper, didn’t participate much of this middle of the night activity. He probably don’t even remember any of this happened.
As Zachary grows into his toddler size, his memory skills are also sharpening well. Before you look for anything that Zachary might have misplaced for you, ask him first. This will save you lots of time since he has really creative places to hide things now. Amazingly he understands the word for most objects to which he has access. So he will most likely remember the ones who are extra nice to him and give him what he wants.
We just realized that Zachary not only knows his basic body parts by Chinese words, but he also knows the equivelant English words to the body parts. We found out this last night when I said to Chris, “I want to clean Zachary’s nose, I can see something in his nose.” Then Zachary put his finger in his nose to try to clean it himself. We then asked him to point to his eyes, ears, hair, feet, hand, and mouth. He knows them all. But I have been trying to get him to learn colors and somehow he is not showing any progress yet.
It makes no sense how management spends their money sometimes. I have been complaining about back and neck problems and management always says that they don’t have overhead money to improve anything for us. Then they go and buy us all 30 inch monitors, even if some of us don’t really need it. Great, just more radiation in my face and I continue to see my chiropractor.
Zachary turned 1.5 years this month and celebrates with Daddy’s birthday at the end of January. By now Zachary knows body parts very well and many Chinese words. He says “zhi gei” - meaning let me do it myself, “mit mit” - peel some fruit to eat, “dea dea” - thank you, and his favorite “gai gai” - going out. He also started climbing the couches without a stepping object and closing doors. He makes sure that the dinning room door is closed if we forget to close it when we come into the living room, but the purpose is to keep Zachary in the living room. And before he comes down from upstairs, he goes to each room and makes sure all the doors are closed, silly boy.
Here is a happy undressed Zachary singing and dancing before retiring to bed.
We put Zachary’s new toddler bed together yesterday. It’s set up in our bedroom for now until he gets a little more comfortable sleeping by himself. He was all excited with his new bed and moved all his stuffed animals from his crib to the new bed. He read to the stuffed animals before sleeping his first night on the bed. Of course he only wanted to play in his bed and not really sleep in his own bed. He eventually got his way of falling asleep in Mommy and Daddy’s bed. I moved sleeping Zachary back to his own bed hoping he will sleep through the night in his bed. Around 3 am I woke up and saw him standing next to my bedside, eyes open. He didn’t cry or yell so he must have pulled on the blanket to wake me up. I was surprised that he could get out of bed himself in the dark and find me like that. So Zachary will try to sleep in his bed again tonight.
We have been busy cleaning up the house and finally make room for our Christmas tree this year. Zachary loves to dance around the tree since Chris bought a musical light show component this year. After the first 2 weeks, Zachary has stopped pulling ornaments off the tree. Zachary has been getting gifts throughout the whole month of December and loves to tear the wrapping paper off. Chris sometimes re-wraps them again for another unwrapping for Zachary.
We spent Christmas in LA this year and visited Jeff and Curtis. The drive down was really bad so we will try to have Jeff and Curtis come up next Christmas. While staying at Jeff and Curtis’s, Zachary started copying us with “meow meow” sounds to get the cat to come out. Since then, he has been saying “ma ma” too. Finally, he calls me “ma ma”. We have the holiday photos on flickr.
Zachary sings with Daddy during holiday work party.
