Thoughtful

Marian was pretty thoughtful today. We were all eating at the dinner table except me. I was feeding her. She said to me whether I am hungry and that I should eat as well.

Also the other day she was playing with two boys in the neighbourhood. She was taking great care with the younger one. She had her hands guarding the boy so that she could cushion a fall if he for example tripped over.

(Continued from previous post) How about hand gestures?


Even hand gestures don't work. I am very disappointed in you.


I must find the optimal strategy that will keep my energy expenditure to a minimum. Simple. Stay calm and let my eyes do the talking.


Don't they look happy without me.

You look as though you've seen a ghost.


To get my point across, I have only one strategy. Cry. I will send a warning now.


No one has taken any notice so I must charge up fully. Ready, steady....


...Go.


Isn't that enough to get your attention? I give up. I must find another way.

More pics

A close up.


He has put on a lot of weight.


A rare calm moment. Possibly plotting his next assault.


I wish you stop crying.


I will give you this chess piece if you stop crying. Alas, he did not. She did try to give it (missed the opportunity to take the photo) but she retracted her hand when the crying intensified.

Together

Don't they look good together?

Be gentle

Be gentle with me. I'm only little.

Mature Look

He has a mature look, don't you think?

More pictures continued

This is more like it. He was crying his heart out. Lately I talk to him and he seems to understand me and goes quiet. For example, when he is crying in my arms, I tell him that his milk is on his way and he suddenly becomes quiet. Perhaps it is wishful thinking but I like to think that he understands me.


Side view of his head. His weight is above average and his head circumference is very large (between 1 percent and 0.1 percent of all babies). However, his height is slightly below average.

More pictures

When I asked her to smile, sometimes it turns out to be quite nice.


Other times, it can look contrived.


One of the very few occasions when I managed to get him to sleep. We have not come up with a name yet. We are heading for a world record of the longest time without a name.


Big sister participation. She relishes the opportunity to get involved. Apart from the time when she stood on him by accident, she has been excellent with her brother.


He does not appear to be crying but this is only by chance. I took this during a bout of crying. It just so happened that this particular frame makes him look as though he is content.

Some more pictures

Thank you for our gift.


Isn't she strong for someone who has just turned two? Actually I was carrying quite a bit of her weight.


Compare the size of the foreheads. Are they not about the same? In fact my wife may have lost this battle.


She loves stickers.


When will she stop climbing? I am looking forward to climbing mountains with her.

Some pictures

At the local park.


Summer Fair at a local school. She likes slides but this one she found too big to go on her own.


Being creative.


She likes climbing.


This is a playground at another local school where we went to their summer fair.

First pictures of brother

Carrying pillow, putting away umbrella, too much kissing

We are trying to get Marian used to sleeping in her own room. This is proving quite difficult. She normally comes back into our room in the middle of the night. The other day, she brought her pillow with her and flopped on top of it to try and get back to sleep.

When we came down together in the morning, she found an umbrella on the bookcase and moved it somewhere. My mother needed it as she was going out and asked where it had gone? I said maybe it is in the kitchen and Marian said it is in the under stairs cupboard. She had put it away where the other umbrellas are.

My wife tried to kiss Marian twice in the morning but she only managed to do it once. On the second try, she said too much. This is better than for me.

Sleeping Difficulty

Marian cannot fall asleep on her own. She normally falls asleep in the baby car seat by rocking it. Yesterday, she actually tried to fall asleep on her own. She began by getting under my blanket but it did not work so she went under her own blanket but also without luck. Since my wife taps her body to try and get her to sleep, she tried tapping herself. This did not work either. Finally she climbed into her car seat and pulled my wife's hand to start rocking her. Full marks for trying.

First trip to the swimming pool

She was excited to go. We got everything ready and set off. We were at the pool edge and she was still pretty keen but as soon as her legs went in, her face changed and decided it was not for her. I think it was because of the water temperature (28 degrees Celsius). A warmer pool would be open much later but we decided the wait would be too long and went back home.

Likes things in order: internally and externally

She does like things in order whether it is something inside her mind or something outside. For instance, when closing the curtains, she will never forget to tell me if I have left a gap. This has been going on for quite some time but more recently, she was drinking some milk and I used to read a book to her whilst she drinks her milk. I have stopped doing this and usually say just watch the television if it happens to be on. She was asking for a children's program called Teletubbies but I said it is not on at this time. Then I realised that she was asking for the book version which we had bought recently. Then she said you made a mistake.

She seems to relish every opportunity to correct the adults. When we make a mistake on purpose, she will quickly correct us.

Marian's corrections

Marian has been correcting my mistakes for quite a while now. For example, when I was washing her hair, I said I am washing the soap off with some water but she corrected me by saying it was shampoo I am washing off.

Her first big scratch

Marian fell on the pavement the other day. Since she was wearing shorts, she managed to scratch her knee. It looked worse than it really was (if she had trousers, I don't think she would have got a scratch) but she would not stop crying for a long time. We were on our way to the playground and although she was crying, she still wanted to go the playground. I got about midway and she wanted to go back home. I reached the entrance of the park and she changed her mind and wanted to go to the playground. We reached the gate of the playground and she refused to go in and requested to go back home. We went back home in the end.

She has a scab now but she prefers it to be covered up with trousers. In the bath, she usually stands up when I am ready to wash her (sometimes without asking). She was reluctant to do so and I had to reassure her that I will not scrub against the injury.

Mater instead of water

Marian has been saying mater instead of water for a very long time. Recently she has started to say water properly. Another problem is to do with not pronouncing the s at the beginning of a word. So sky would be ky and star would be tar. She sometimes pronounces it properly but still not quite perfect. Interestingly, she does not struggle with the Korean or Japanese so conspicuously. Oh, yes in Japanese when she says aoi (blue), she says awaoi.

Hitting the tennis ball

Marian is hitting the tennis ball very well. Although it is a tennis ball on a string. It is quite remarkable how the ball flies off the racket. She is better than me at transferring her body weight into the ball. I have this awful habit of relying on the strength of my arm whereas with Marian, she has a proper back swing and follow through. All the more remarkable when she has only seen me hit the ball. How on earth could she have picked up this swing?

Climbing up the slide

Marian has been trying to climb up the slide for a very long time and she has finally conquered it two days ago. I am not often very proud of Marian but on achieving this, I was pretty proud. I could see how much skill was involved. The way she moved her feet and hands at the right time. The way she judged the lack of friction on her feet, adjusted her position and waited for the right moment to move her hands up. This is not something I taught. Children pick up these things so easily.

There was an older boy who (just about did it) had not seen Marian do it and was announcing that she is too young to do it. I had to say that she can.

Recognising the planets

Marian can point to the correct planet when I mention the name from the diagram in the atlas. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. I have tried it in a random order as well. In the same book, there are some pictures of galaxies which she has also taken an interest. I should show her some more detailed pictures.

"I don't need this"

Marian scratched me on my face and I showed her I was in pain. She did not come forward so I said you should say sorry. She looked away and said sorry. I said she should look at me when saying sorry. Then she muttered "I don't need this". I don't think she meant anything bad by it. She is learning about constructing sentences.

Dictionary and maps

Marian likes to read dictionaries and maps. With the dictionaries, she is only learning the letters. With the map, I tell her where Abeonim and Omeonim live, and where Ojisan lives. She is also taking an interest in astronomy. When she saw the solar system, she wanted to know the names of the planets.

Fussy

Marian can be very fussy. An example is with some curtains. When I close the curtains, if there is even a slight gap, she has made it a habit to notify me. Another example would be food on the plate. If a certain food is placed on a certain part of the plate is about to be replenished, she would like it in the same place.

Gochisousama

When Marian was eating a meal, she did not particularly fancy finishing the meal. So she said gochisousama (the usual thing to say at the end of a meal like jalmogosumnida in Korean). I am sure every time Marian has heard this phrase, it is when all the food has been eaten up. She has used the phrase to prevent any more food being put into her mouth.

Warning of impending wetness

The other day, I was in the playground with Marian. She wanted to slide down the big slide but it was too wet and I did not have anything to wipe it dry. She was playing nearby and saw another child about to slide down. She warned the child that the slide is wet.

Setting up potty

When Marian woke up today, she went to the toilet and set up her potty (baby toilet). The potty we have has 2 parts. One part goes on the adult toilet seat and the other part is a step to help the child up on the seat. My wife found her sitting on the seat. This looked promising but she has still not released anything on the seat.

"Why do you shake it? It will come out!"

Yesterday, we ate pizza for dinner. As I have developed a liking for spicy food, I like eating the pizza with a spicy sauce. As I was vigorously shaking the bottle, Marian had an alarming look in her face and said "why are you shaking it? It will come out!" She was worried because she has seen an accident when the contents came out due to the top not being screwed on properly. I had to assure her that the top was securely screwed and that I shook it to get an even consistency.

It appears that her English is currently the most fluent. Korean and Japanese are roughly the same which is a puzzle when you consider that she hears Japanese more than the Korean. Perhaps this is because she has heard more Korean when she was in the womb? Perhaps she can pick up what her mother says more easily than when other people talk to her? Anyway, as the books say, children seem to be able to separate the languages and do not jumble or mix them up.

Swing sideways

On the theme of experimentation, rather than just moving the swing forwards and backwards, she has started to displace her weight off centre in order to move the swing with a sideways component. So she now enjoys going slightly circular instead of just in a vertical plane. She also likes to go sideways on the rocking animals.

First scooter ride

Marian does not have a scooter but whenever some older children come to the park, they bring along a scooter. She tries to ride it but they tend to be too big for her. But yesterday, she managed to ride it on her own. It was just the right size for her. She did not put it back where she found it so I asked her to put it back. She obliged. If only she is like this all the time.

Telling a lie for the first time?

I don't know when children start to tell lies but I think Marian (22 months) told her first lie yesterday. I saw a snake I cut out of card inside the bin. It had been torn into several pieces. I asked her if Marian had ripped it up? She hesitated and said no. I asked her again and she said yes.

She has shown this cheeky side from a very young age. I think it started when she offered something to me and she retracted it from me. This kind of cheekiness has been steadily increasing. Yesterday, she insisted on playing on the wide windowsill where I had put a solar powered watch. I asked her twice not to move it but she did not listen. On the third asking, she quickly grabbed it and threw it. Luckily it landed on some clothing. If she had managed to throw it properly (she is very capable of throwing things), it could have easily broken a window.

First long sentence construction

Marian has been talking for a few months now but she has not really constructed a long sentence until yesterday (22 months). She said among other things, "I like having a bath." Communication should hopefully become a lot easier. This is quite a jump from her usual two word sentences. You would expect a gradual increase to 3 words if anything.

Soft volley ball and hand fan

Marian found my new soft volley ball still in the packaging (deflated). She insisted on me getting it out. Once opened, I told her that I needed a pump to blow it up into a ball. I needed to put air into this tiny hole. Marian went away and brought a hand fan and demonstrated it. She thought that the hand fan would be useful in blowing the ball up. She insisted on me blowing it up so I had to get the pump and pin.

Another playground near Louvre

I tried to get her on this wagon instead but she could not be controlled.

Get me out of here! As soon as it started to go round and up and down, she could not stand it. There was a barrage of "DANGEROUS" and she was insisting on getting off the merry-go-round.

I hoped she would get her money's worth this time on the merry-go-round. It looked promising.

Lets try something different. I wonder what the view is like up here if I stand. Well, I am taller than daddy.

There were no normal slides but we found an alternative in this dome. It was too big for her to climb so I had to lift her up. It did not take long to figure out that this can also function as a slide. The other kids were content staying at the top (probably because they have invested a lot of effort to get up there) but Marian was going up and down, up and down.

Afterwards, "dizzy, dizzy".

This is a mechanical rocking horse. I don't think there were any springs. Consequently, it did not seem thrilling enough for her. Before this, she tried a trampoline for the first time. She did not get her money's worth. She was observing the other children but she never managed to get the hang of it. After bouncing once or twice, she lost her balance.

Louvre

We did not even attempt to go inside the Louvre. We walked to the nearest park in search of a cafe and a playground.

Notre Dame

In front of the Notre Dame. It is about time I saw this without any unsightly obstructions. Every time I had visited Notre Dame, it was covered in scaffolding. It looks pretty clean now.

Jardin des Plantes

In the restaurant with my wife. We were again very hungry at this stage. The starters were ok but the main was disappointing to say the least. The steak I ordered was so hard that I must have achieved an equivalent to a full work out at a gym. I don't normally leave food but I could not manage to cut the last piece of steak small enough (the knife was too blunt) and my jaw was not strong enough to grind it into smaller pieces. Time for a different title I think.


The walk along the Seine was pleasant. We found a nice playground before we got to Notre Dame. That should occupy any bored toddler. The person on the right is a friend, Duke (husband of Anna).

Asleep at last. We walked along the Seine to the Notre Dame area and into a restaurant where she woke up.


When we arrived at the park, I spotted a playground but I was a bit disappointed by the size of it. I was hoping to find another one as we walked around and this was it. It was a shame because the time was approaching her nap time.


She likes these rocking animals too. Sometimes I worry about her snapping her neck the way she moves vigorously on these spring rides. This time she could not manage to satisfy her need for speed because her feet could not reach the foot rests.

Phew, she managed it.


This is typical of Marian. Since she had already climbed up the normal way, she attempted to climb up another way.She has a habit of trying out different ways to do things. This was evident from such a young age. Take for instance, going down the stairs. She has used the wall to support herself, then the banister, without any supports, sliding down on her bottom, jumping down, using the same leg as the leading leg, alternating the leading leg, facing forwards, facing backwards etc.

She also likes climbing. She will not pass up an opportunity to climb up a ladder.


Marian loves slides.

We wanted to find a playground for Marian and we were recommended Jardin des Plantes. The park was full of locals basking in the sun. I like to escape the tourists and experience the hang-outs of the locals.