It's only been a few months since my last post but I have so much to share.
First, Luke's Birthday! We took a super mini family vacation, including my mother- and father-in-law, to San Diego for Luke's 2nd birthday. We spent one day at the San Diego Zoo and the next day at the Scripps Aquarium. The zoo was a bit underwhelming for the kids. Luke spent the whole day spotting pumpkins instead of animals, while Makayla was cranky all day long. In fact, the highlight of the day for them was checking into the hotel.
Second, Halloween! Makayla really wanted to be one of the my little pony characters for Halloween this year. After an unsuccessful search for the right costume, I stumbled upon an amazing DIY my little pony costume-making website here: http://www.sugartartcrafts.com/2013/09/my-little-pony-costume-sew-along.html. This site inspired me to make the kids' costumes this year, Makayla as Twilight Sparkle and Luke as her pet dragon, Spike. Surprisingly, I pulled it off just in the nick of time and they turned out great! I also learned so much through the tutorial. Special thanks to Eric who helped me figure out how to use the sewing machine and helped with parts of the costumes.
Since Halloween was on a Saturday this year, we traveled back to South Pasadena to go trick or treating. OMG I had no idea how amazing it was to go trick or treating in this city! We might just have to make it a tradition!
Luke is continuing to amaze me with his verbal abilities. He forms really full, mostly grammatically correct sentences. He also says so many funny phrases/sentences including "That's not nice!" or "Why is the baby crying?" "I did it!" All throughout October, he kept saying "Spooky Halloween" when he saw anything that reminded him of Halloween.
Related to his verbal ability growth is his socio-emotional development. He is constantly trying to engage with others. He'll take people by the hand and say "Come on". He'll also order people around "Open it!" "Stop singing!" "No picture!"
Everything that comes out of his mouth is an actual word, no more babbling.
His nos mean no and his yeses mean yes.
Luke wants to do whatever M is doing. When she's practicing piano, he comes and says "piano lesson!" and tries to play along. He follows her around the room, playing with whatever she is playing with at the moment. Of course this causes quite a bit of fighting in the Chang household.
Luke obsessions:
- Christmas songs
- It's a Small World song and ride
- Disneyland (he asks to go everyday)
- pumpkins
Makayla has been great at expressing how she feels. What she says also reflects a more advanced way of thinking. When I read books to her she is really focused on the story being told, and when probed with more difficult questions, for example questions asking her to predict what will happen next, she is able to provide very thoughtful responses.
Her teacher at school observes that she learns things quickly and is very social.
At night, she spends some good one-on-one M/Daddy time coloring, drawing pictures, and writing. She really looks forward to this time and has created some really fun artwork :)
Her piano playing is going great. She seems to have a natural ability to learn music well-- it doesn't take much effort to teach her new songs. More importantly, she is getting much better at practicing. We've established a designated time for piano practicing and a simple rule of "5 times per song" before leaving the piano. This consistency has really helped her be less resistant to practicing.
Makayla says funny things during potty time:
- "Come on, butt!"
- "Yes! I made it!"
Happy 4th birthday to my not-so-little-anymore baby girl! We are so blown away by how much she's grown in just one year. She has really turned to a self-sufficient, mature, thoughtful, and sweet girl. This year, she chose to go on a "birthday adventure" to LEGOLAND over having a birthday party. We had a blast!
A new school year has begun! This is M's 2nd year of preschool with not much change-- same school, same teachers, many of the same friends. Seeing how much she's learned from her 1st year of preschool, I look forward to watching her continued growth this coming year.
Makayla has shown much growth in her socio-emotional development. She shows a bit of empathy-- she tries really hard to be a good big sister to Luke. Luke has started attending school with Makayla (more on that later) and now that she is in an environment where she is finding herself having to share Luke with others, she is getting quite possessive of him. One day a few teachers were making a big fuss over Luke, each calling him "my baby". Makayla witnessed this and got angry, saying "NO! He's MY baby!" :) I'm so glad that even with all the bickering they do at home, she still wants to keep him. We have been teaching her how to speak kindly and use proper words. Other than the typical "please" and "thank you", we are teaching her to watch her tone. Sometimes she uses words like "OKAAAY" with a little hint of attitude. Also, sometimes Luke hands her an object she doesn't want and we are teaching her to say thank you and take it from him even if she doesn't want it.
Also she does well when things are explained to her-- for example, some mornings she doesn't feel like going to school -- but I explain to her that she needs to go so the teachers can care for her while Eric and I are at work so we can make money to have a house to live in and food to eat. She's much less resistant after that.
A few areas we have been working on with her is paying attention and telling the truth. Last month we noticed that Makayla was having a hard time paying attention in class. Her school teachers say it's not unusual at this age and something preschool children are working on. She is also not speaking the truth but her lying is not purposeful. She randomly tells us things that are not true, for no apparent reason.
I have enrolled Makayla in piano group lessons this month. It's really addressing the basics of piano and she seems to enjoy it so far.
Makayla is becoming quite the picky eater. She only wants to eat spaghetti and mac n cheese.
As has been the obsession this past year, Makayla is continuing to pretend play with her My Little Pony figurines. I've noticed that her vocabulary and sentence structure has improved and she's even developed a really good western drawl!
Makayla's obsessions:
- Cookie Swirl C
- My Little Ponies
- being first
Luke Update (23 months!):
Though the new school year brought about very few changes for M, it was a completely new experience for Luke. We were a bit skeptical of moving Luke from home care to the school environment, but being familiar with the school, getting dropped off at church every Sunday during service, and visiting the school with me a few days before his start date really helped him to transition smoothly. In fact, a week before he started, I spent 2 days with him in the classroom followed by a full day observing him from a booth with a double sided window looking into the classroom. He participated well, had fun during circle time, ate well, and napped well! These days drop-offs are still a bit of a struggle, but the crying never lasts too long. The teachers have all told me how surprised they are by how well he's transitioned. I am always greeted with stories of how cute and talkative he is, about how impressed they are that he knows all the words to all the frozen songs, how affectionate he is, and how happy he made them that he called them by name. Less than one month in, he's already singing the days of the week song.
Luke is getting really good at names. Just the other day, he waved to a boy in his class and said "bye Peter!" I was taken aback a bit because I don't typically see him talking/playing with other children other than his sister. He also said bye to a few of his teachers. They love that he knows their name.
Luke is speaking in phrases and occasionally complete sentences (e.g., "Ant right there", "where Daddy go?", "Here you go"). Just this weekend, he started using "I want... " to begin a lot in his sentences ("I want Ashley." "I want that." "I want milk." "I want that right there"). This was the first time I've heard him use the word "I" let alone any self reference in a sentence. What a significant milestone! One really cute/funny thing he says is "no thank you". It's really funny when gets upset about something and he yells angrily "NO THANK YOU!"
And of course his vocabulary is growing leaps and bounds. He's picking up many new words everyday. A few new words he's learned: dolphin, helicopter, airplane, help, out, upstairs, hello kitty, zebra, ice cream, yogurt, bath toys, mygym
He's been using a lot of adjectives such as "funny", "silly"
He can identify questions (vs. sentences) and understands the answers that correspond to the questions. For example, when you ask "What color is this?", he will typically answer "red" (even if the object is not red). When you ask "How many doggies are there?", he'll answer "one, two, three" (even if there are more than 3 dogs). When you ask "Who wants to eat ice cream?", he'll answer "Me!". When you ask "Did you go poopy?", he'll usually answer "no" even if he went poop.
He's also beginning to ask his own questions. Occasionally he will ask "why" after a statement. Once you give an answer, he'll ask "why" again. And as you can imagine, this goes back and forth for awhile.
Different from M, Luke is becoming a less picky eater. At school, Luke gets a daily "report card" indicating how well he ate his snacks, lunch main dish, veggies, fruit, milk. Often we'll see that he ate all the components well. I'm a proud mama :)
Like Makayla, Luke has a natural knack for music. He's great with words and beats. You should hear him sing his frozen songs!
He was able to count to 20 in English and 11 in Chinese (at 21 months).
Luke has grown quite opinionated about his wardrobe. For example, he only wants to wear Mickey shoes. We had to find new Mickey shoes in order to avoid a struggle every morning. Occasionally, he will give us a hard time about clothes.
He is overgeneralizing but much less. During his last update I mentioned that he used one word for all different characters in that he didn't have a different name for the different characters within a show. He has extremely good at differentiating characters from each other.
