Okay, this is going to be a huge picture dump post because it’s been about 3 weeks. So … 2 Sundays ago, I took Zach to the twin’s house for a playgroup. It was lots of fun and we met a toddler Zach’s age (22 months) who was already potty trained! I was very impressed. On Wednesday, we went to a spaghetti dinner at Zachary’s daycare. The teachers say that Zachary likes hanging out with Chloe – and when she walked in, Zachary had this big smile on his face.
Last weekend, we went to the Bay Area. We visited my sisters and also James’ grandmother. There were quite a few of James’ relatives there. I brought my scrapbooking materials and helped with the memorial board.
We drove back Saturday night, and Zach’s friend Alex came to play on Sunday. And for Valentine’s (actually a day later to avoid crowds), James and I went to Mikuni’s while Alex’s parents babysat. When we got back from dinner, we all chatted and I found out that at day care (our boys are in the same class), they do songs with hand motions/movements. I never knew that! We started singing “Ring-Around-a-Rosy” – and the boys knew the dance! They also knew the motions to “The Wheels on the Bus” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider.” It was really cute.
(Notice our new sectional FINALLY came in!)
We kicked off the long weekend with a big playgroup – I think 12 toddlers! I served breakfast foods (raisin bread, bagels) and also lunch (mac/cheese, cheese quesadilla for the kids, and vegetarian curry over rice for the adults.) It was lots of fun for me, but James said he got a headache at the end.
The rest of the weekend was more relaxing. We went to Home Depot and ordered new carpet for our living room and walk-in closet. I took Zachary to the outlet mall. We had Jackie and Uyen over for dinner (chicken curry) and a game of Settlers.
Zachary loves letters and numbers - so I bought him the Leapfrog alphabet DVD. He watches the show with his alphabet puzzle in front of him and selects the puzzle piece that matches the letter on TV. He can identify all his letters except he gets B,V, and D confused (I call them out, and he hands me the puzzle piece; its possible my pronounciation is poor – I’ve been told I mumble.). Zachary can also count to 12 now – he knows the concept, but he’s missing a few pronounciations. So you hear “1, 2, 3, 4, ta, 6, ta, ta, 8, 9, ta, ta, 12″. It’s pretty funny. And of course now he has to count everything – from birds to cans of soup to Cheerios.
(Yes, he is wearing shoes over his sleeper. It wasn’t worth fighting over.)
Last night we went out for dinner and today, since the weather was so nice, we went to the park for a picnic lunch.
New words are “itza” for pizza, “te” for stick, “book”, “ta” and “se-tow” for tongue, “pa” for pop, “all-da” for ‘all done’, and a bunch of colors, letters and, numbers. Zach can also make animal sounds for birds, dog, sheep, and cow. (Hm. I’m not sure a barking child is something to be proud of.) He can recognize basic colors, which as a male, is all he will ever know. (If you don’t believe me, show the nearest male a periwinkle crayon and ask him what color it is. 99% chance he’ll say ‘blue’.) And finally, he can name the basic body parts in English and Chinese (although in Chinese he confuses mouth and tail.). I think Zach is almost ready for his 2-year doctor’s appointment! I hope he’s caught up (although no sentences over 2 words long or 3-syllable words yet)…
