Growing Up With Kah Yen: Kah Yen turns 17-month old

Before babies turn one year old, we don't feel time goes very fast because we are always waiting for them to grow and anticipating new milestones they will reach. Each month passed, we can't wait for the next to come to see a new skill they will learn - grabbing aN object at two-month, sleeping through the night at three-month, pushing up at four-month, sitting up at five-month, eating solid food at six-month, crawling at seven-month, first word at eight-month, etc... We can't wait for time to go faster right? And of course there is the moment we declare "My baby is one!" for which we have been waited a whole year to come.

After the grand one year birthday celebration, they continue to grow and learn new things. However, the only milestone we are anticipating is probably walking, other than that we are just waiting for them to turn 18-month so we can officially call them a toddler oe enroll them in Childcare. You hardly think "Learning the word dog" or "Building a tower of 2 cubes" as a milestone right? Hence day by day it goes and before we know it we are using the phrase 'How time flies!" because our baby is 15 or 16 or 17-month old already.

That's what happened to me.

I can't believe she is already 17-month old. It felt like yesterday we have just celebrated her one year birthday, and then she leaped a giant 5-month forward. 17-month is the last month I can still call her a baby. When she is 18-month she will be officially called a toddler and a little girl.

She has grown so much in the last few months I just want to record as much as I can so that I can reminisce these moments later.

One of the areas she had been picking up really fast is talking. She was babbling and speaking a few words after one year old, recently she started to pick up words almost daily and even put words together. Here are some examples:

1. Chou Chou (Chinese for Smelly)
Every time we change diaper for her, she points at the wet diaper and says "Chou Chou", and she will do the smelling action - inhale loudly and squeeze her eyes, nose and month altogether. She looks really cute doing it. In the past when I changed her dirty diaper I always folded it once to support her backside so that her dirty backside does not touch the changing mat. Now I can't do it anymore because she insists it is smelly and must be thrown away immediately.

2. Poo Poo
This is a very useful word that I am glad she has picked up. Now whenever she pooed she will come to us, point at her backside and say "Poo Poo". We will then change her diaper right away. False alarm happens quite often though, I am yet to figure out what other meanings could "Poo Poo" possibly represent to her.

3. Ah Pooh
She finally gave her best friend an identity. "Ah Pooh" actually refers to "Baby Pooh". We have always called it "Baby Pooh", I really don't know where she got "Ah Pooh" from. She always points when she wants Baby Pooh then out of sudden one day she decided to call it "Ah Pooh". I am trying to imagine this in her head "Baby Pooh, your name is too difficult. From this day, you shall be called Ah Pooh." Hmm...at 17-month old she already knows how to give nicknames, her schoolmates are going to have a hard time.
Even since she started to call "Ah Pooh", we will hear it at least 20 times a day. Every time we are going out, she will look around in the house for Ah Pooh. One evening we pushed her out too fast we forgot to take Ah Pooh, when we were in the playground she suddenly called "Ah Pooh, Ah Pooh Ah Pooh..." at leave five times, which translate to "WHERE IS MY AH POOH?", "I MISS MY AH POOH.", " I WANT MY AH POOH!", "AH POOH! AH POOH! WHERE ARE YOU?" respectively.

4. Bubble
This is the first real two-syllable english word she speaks. She likes us to play soup bubble game with her. Every time she wants to play, she will call "Bubble bubble" non-stop.

5. Xi Shou (Chinese for Wash Hands)
One of her favorite activities. I hope it will not be just a game for her but a habit to last.

6. Da Qiu (Chinese for Play Ball)
Also one of her recent favorite activities. I did not teach her the word "Da" (Chinese for Hit) though. To me "Da" is a negative action so I won't mind if she picks up late. Her grandma, taught her the word by accident though. One day she was standing on her bed and tripped, her head bumped on the bed railing. She was crying. In order to comfort her her grandma hit the railing and said "Da" a few times. She even grabbed Kah Yen's hand to hit the railing. That's how she learnt the word "Da". To be frank I was a bit furious about this especially when one day Kah Yen suddenly hit my head and said "Da"! To her maybe it is just a word and an action, but to me that's a bad behavior we should have avoided teaching her.

Other than these words she is also trying to put three words together such as Qiao Qiao Ban (Chinese for See-Saw) and Zi Xing Che (Chinese for Bike).

All in all she is speaking about 20-30 words now, a bit achievement in the last few months. She speaks Chinese more than English, since I have decided to talk her mainly in Chinese. I found Chinese is much easier for babies to learn, because there is a lot more single syllable words, and many names can be called by repeating one syllable. For example for animals like MaoMao, GouGou, NiaoNiao, TuTu, they are easier to say than their counterpart Cat, Dog, Bird and Rabbit.

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Other than languages, she has also learnt to work independently;

She has kissed goodbye to her morning nap and is settling well to one nap a day.

She started to scribble on paper and magnetic board.

She is building blocks instead of knocking them down.

She starts to show interest in shape sorter but insists everything should go in from the round hole.

She can sit through one whole story book like "It's the Bear", "The very hungry Caterpillar"..and likes to point at objects she knows.

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She is going to be a big girl soon!