Boxing Day

Daniel was very upset this morning when he got up and rushed down the lounge, I couldn't worked out why at the beginning. He was sobbing, I asked him ' what' the matter?' He said 'Presents... presents all gone....' there was one little present got left there and I asked him to open that one and he said ' No, not this one...big one...big one...' then i realised that he expected to see a whole mountain of presents like yesterday.

I asked Daniel 'What do you want to do today?' he said without hesitation ' go to the library.... going on the bus....' I said ' Are you going to walk there? walk to the library on your feet? then get bus back?' Daniel nodded 'Yes...yes'.

The day before yesterday he walked all the way from home to the library without a buggy. I decided to leave buggy home when we set off , because Daniel seemed to like long walk recently instead of wanting me to carry him. The trip took us 40 minutes for a-normal-20 minutes walk, which is the first time for Daniel to walk such a long distance by feet, Daniel enjoyed the walking, so did I though I got backache as I had to slightly bend down my body to make Daniel feel comfortable when holding his hand . The main excitement to inspire Daniel to walk such a long distance was the bus ride. Daniel likes the nursery rhythm The wheel on the Bus so much that he can sing so many different versions of The Wheel on the Bus. We don't normally use bus service, so it would be a real excitement for Daniel to experience the getting on(off) the bus/seeing people up and down/ seeing the bus door open and shut as the lyric of the BUS song suggest. Hearing the bus driver to say 'ticket please!' would probably be the highlight of the day for Daniel, he was holding that ticket in his little hand tight all the way home after the bus ride to show Daddy and got really upset when he lost just before we home...

Today is Boxing Day, there wasn't any bus services and library was shut. Though I kept telling Daniel library was shut and there would no bus today, he still insisted to go out for a long walk under a below-zero temperature. Never mind! Daniel doesn't mind cold, so we went out for walk. Daniel did 40 minutes walking to the library without complain and came back home in the buggy. obviously he was disappointed that there is no bus today!

Christmas Day

Daniel had a really happy Christmas today. This morning when he woke up he rushed downstairs to the lounge to find his presents. He took a glimpse under the Christmas tree, surprised why there was no presents there. we stacked all the presents in front of the chimney to give Daniel the impression that Santa came down the chimney. Despite the effort, Daniel still said ' Daddy paid....' when he opened his first present. The first present he opened was a bus, he like the toy bus so much that he didn't bother to touch other presents. We have to remind him of the other presents. Daniel was quite tide with all the wrapping papers. he neatly put them all in one pile.... among all the toys we bought for him, the bus proved to be his favorite. (He is really into the BUS recently, bus book, bus toys, bus ride... all started from the BUS nursery rhythm.)

Terry cooked Christmas Dinner. This is the first time we spend Christmas Day in our own house. It went well, even Daniel agreed to put the Christmas hat on, he normally hate to put hat on his head....

Playdate

Another lovely day for Daniel. (apart from his usual supermarket tantrum).

Daniel's best friend Justin's house is just a few block away from ours. Joane and me regularly invite each other over for coffee and kids playdate, so Daniel knows Justin's house quite well, each time when we walk / drive past Justin's house, Daniel would shout ' Justin's house...Justin's house...' with excitement. He likes to go Justin's house to play. This would be fine if I had appointment with Joane, but sometimes when I take Daniel out for a walk locally, he would insist to go Justin's house, which makes me a bit apprehensive as I know it's not good time to visit Joane, Daniel certainly hasn't got the concept of appointment, so he developed into the habit of 'phoning' Justin. Daniel would pick up phone on the table, uttering words like this 'phone Justin... phone Justin...', then he would press button on the phone (lucky he hasn't work out which button is SEND. He would key in number randomly) 'hello, Justin, uh... go playgroup...bye, bye...' normally it would be followed by phoning other people around; 'phone Charlotte...'; 'phone Hannah...'; 'Phone Popo..' etc

This afternoon we went to Justin house for a playdate, also gave Justin Christmas present. Daniel was very good today at holding my hands when walking on pavement, he immediately demanded ' holding mummy's hand when the gate of front garden shut behind us. Upon arriving at Justin's house he literally shouted 'Justin... Justin...' and knocked the door. Daniel and Justin played really well WITH each other, instead of alongside each other, they seemed to start to doing thing together, which is probably the first time they two both show the sign co-operative play.

Password Please

Daniel had a really lovely day yesterday.

He had Christmas party at playgroup with his best friend in the morning and went to library in the afternoon. Library is one of the best place he would like to go nowadays alongside bookshop, jelly bean (a softplay center) and playgroup at our local church. Upon arriving at library, he immediately required to 'have coffee' though I knew he wasn't hungry at all as we just had lunch at home. However i still ordered him a glass of orange juice and two slices of toast as I know if not there would be a tantrum on display. 'Coffee and toast' is the routine for our library trip as we normally go there to meet up with Justin and his mum, there would be baby group on Monday morning sand Story and Rhythm time on Friday. It was quiet in the library yesterday, so Daniel quite enjoyed his free play at the children section. He picked out a Bus book from the book case and sat there browsing through the book and read out loud:

'the wheel on the bus go round and round...all day long'; he turned page,

'the wiper on the bus go swish and swish...all day long', then turned page,

'the horn on the bus go beep, beep,beep...all day long', turned page,

'the people on the bus go up and down, up and down... all through the town...' turned page,

'the baby on the bus go wah wah.. wah.. wah.. wah, all day long..';

'the children on the bus go party time, party time...all day long... finished'

A mum with 18 month baby sitting opposite us was very impressed and said to me 'your son's language development is very good'. I agreed with her but actually i was more impressed with Daniel's fine motor skill or his ability of turning each page without missing one.Then he picked out another one titled The very hungry Caterpillar and started to browse this book while reading it out page by page;

'Monday caterpillar ate one apple...' he turned the pages of the picture book;

'Tuesday caterpillar ate two pear...'

'Wednesday he ate three plum...'

'Thursday he ate ... strawberries..'

'...... finished'

i was very impressed with this one as i didnt remember I have read him this book before. It must be someone in the nursery, then i asked him:' who read this book to you, Daniel?' Daniel said 'Kirsty'.

Daniel did some drawing at the table, jumping up and down on the steps, getting in and out a boat at the children section. Finally he spot the computers at the corner, which are just about the right height for him. he managed to climp up the chair and sit at the keyboard shouting 'password please...password please...' I said to him ' It's four o'clock, it's getting dark, shall we go home?' He said to me firmly 'No, password please!' I said ' Mummy don't know the password, you have to go ask the lady' he hesitated a bit then decided he would do it no matter what, he climb down the chair, walked to the librarian and said 'password please!' the lady firstly didn't understand what he want then i explained that he want to use the computer. So the lady helped him to log in. I helped him logged in the In The Night Garden website, one of his favorite BBC children programme, he was pointing the character shouting 'Nincky Nonk... Upsy daisy... Maka Paka... tombliboos...' after 10minutes's excitement for Daniel i had to persuade Daniel off the computer by promising a bus ride. When we got out the library, there was just a bus arriving... it was the first time Daniel got on a bus, hehe, What an exciting day for Daniel

Photo with Santa

I didn't think I would ever get a photo of Daniel with Santa as he thinks Santa is scary. Having said that today I finally got a picture of Daniel sitting on Santa's lap. We went the playgroup's Christmas party at the local church with Justin and his Mum Joanne. Daniel was quite excited about it as he knew there would be cakes and biscuits. We wasn't even for sure if there would be a Santa there. Joanne texted me early that she was going to bring a small present for Justin just in case there aren't enough presents to go around ( it is a very popular playgroup in the neighbourhood). So i did the same. To our surprise, Santa turned up with plenty of presents and every child's name has been called and Daniel got a very decent set of nursery rhythm jigsaw from M&S, which is just what he would want. Daniel asked me to open his presents, then he took two piece of jigsaw out and walked to the Santa, which was a bit out of character. He was standing in front of Santa trying to gave back the two piece of jigsaws, obviously he didn't know they are for him, then i had to say to Santa 'he want to thanks Santa for the present...' Santa picked up Daniel to sit on his lap and I clicked my camera quickly. Daniel become the first one to get photo with Santa. After Daniel's turn, there was soon a long queue in front Santa for photos.

Santa Scary

Daniel said to me 'Santa Clause in the bedroom...' when he woke up in the morning, I said 'Did you ask him for presents?' He said 'no... Santa Clause scary... Santa Clause come down the chimney... atishoo..atishoo!' I was thinking I'd better not to take him to have photo taken with Santa if Santa is so scary... there are queue everywhere anyway.

we finally put up our Christmas tree early this year, my neighbour across road had a big Santa and red-nose reindeer lights on their wall and Daniel kept asking to look it from window...

Winter in the Park

It was below zero today when we woke up. The ground was completely frozen with wide-spread frost. We got heavy snow 2 days ago but it melt the same day. This morning was so frosty and the lake was covered by inch-thick ice, which is not like the normal weather here, the winter here normally isn't that harsh, it would be cold but it wouldn't normally go icy like this, I mean it is more like the weather in the Canada or Nordic country. It explains that why I saw people pick up the ice from the lake in the Pugney Park. Daniel certainly felt excited to see ice when we took him to feed duck as the ducks were all walking on the ice. He enjoyed the playground although it was very icy and slippery.

Two Year old

This post meant to write a few weeks ago, but I was just too busy to update the blog at that time. Daniel's nursery progress report for last 3 months is due back tomorrow, which reminded me that I haven't written anything about his Two. For me, Daniel's Two is definitely 'terrible two'. I have already identified Daniel's tantrum hotspots:

1) getting dressed. Daniel is very picky on his outfit. He likes to wear pajamas. If we are not going out, that 's fine with me. But if we are going out, it always need a bit persuasion to get the proper clothing on him.

2) Choosing music. Daniel likes songs and music. He was into Sound of Music and Jingle Bell last month. He kept listening the two CDs last month, he's off Jingle Bell and Sound of Music now, and moved on to different version of Wheel on the Bus. This one is his all time favorite. 'bus...bus...' If i didn't play the right track 'not this one...not this one...' , it guaranteed there would a big tantrum.

3)Choosing food. There would a big tantrum if the food are not prepared/given as he expected. so I do ask him what he want first before serving him now.

Daniel's progress report for last three month is a 34-pages document. I was quite surprised that the new government framework requires such in-depth assessment(500 milestones!!) towards a toddler. Daniel has a lot ticks towards 36 month on the areas of self-Confidence, making relationships, language for communication, reading and counting; Movement and space etc. Not so much on shape and colors.

Photos were taken on his two year birthday party with Justin and his mum. Daniel insisted to wear his pajama for his birthday. What can I do! Joanne said 'It's his birthday anyway, he got to choose the things he want...'

'Too much...'

'Too much' is one of Daniel's frequent used phrase at the moment. He understand this phrase very clearly. he say that word when I try to force him something or when he really can not cope what's going on around him. Lasst weekend we took him to see his grandparents down south. It was bonfire night in town that night, so we took Daniel out first time in the evening for such an event. Daniel firstly was very excited about seeing every children holding a flashing light. But after the parade, especially after the steamy engines' whistling, Daniel really had enough, he started to say 'too much, too much... go home... go home...'

Life has been really hectic recently. firstly, Terry started to work away from home, which mean there are just me and Daniel at home during the week, his new work is beyond the commuting distance. This is not the first time Terry has to work away. We worked away from each other many times in the past, but for Daniel, it is the first time to live without Daddy. Secondly, Daniel now moved up the class, which he is very resent to. Nursery tried to move himto Toddler Room in September, but Daniel was crying very hard , then I asked them not to too pushy on him. Two weeks ago, on a parent evening Karen raised this issue to me again and I said Ok, Daniel has to move on and grow up anyway, he is the oldest one in the Baby Room. And now it seems that the clock has been moved back to exactly one years ago when I finished my maternity leave and dropped Daniel off at nursery first time, last year it was in Baby Room, this time in Toddler Room, again, lots of tears, lots of guilt as Daniel virtually like plead me not to leave him there. Every morning for the last two week, once I mentioned that Mummy have to go to work today, Daniel immediately throw himself on the floor crying' don't like nursery... don't like nursery...mummy...mummy...' hevwould refue to put shoes on, coat on. Then I had to say things like 'Mummy will sit with you in nursery' to calm him down and got him in car. He murmured 'mama sit nursery...mama sit nursery...' all the way to the nursery... , which made me feel very bad as I can't sit with him in nursery all day. The following day when i tried the same tactic in the hope to get him in car but it didn't work as he knew mummy didn't mean it through the previous day's experience. Then i had to say 'you'll go baby room today...' he calmed down a little bit once he heard 'go baby room...' On the way to nursery, He murmured something like 'go Jelly Bean... go jelly bean...' at the back of my car all the way there, I thought Daniel was using kind of self-denial as the coping strategy, he knew he wasn't going to baby room anymore and he recognises the route to nursery, but still he would like to think we go to Jelly Bean, one of his favorite soft play center we go regularly.

Also, now I drop him of fand pick him up everyday. With my new work, I finish at 5.30pm, which mean he is always the last one to be picked up at nursery. So, there has been too much change for Daniel to cope in such a short period of time. No wonder he keep saying 'too much... too much...'

winter walk

It was so sunny on Monday morning, i took Daniel to feed duck in our local Cannon Hall Park . Since Daniel can speak sentence, ' I don't like...' has become one of his favorite and most frequently used sentence, he likes to say 'don't like...' to everything I suggest him to do, however, 'feeding duck' is one of the thing he would say 'yes'. So off we went.

It was so cold in the morning though it was sunny, and windy too. Daniel was in a light fleece jumper when we got out the car. Getting him in the new thick winter coat always needs a bit battle, but to my surprise, after he wandered around the park being chased by all the ducks for a good 10 minutes, he didn't tantrum a bit when i put his winter coat on and he even allow me to put the hood of the jumper on his head. It must be really cold that day!

Dinner party

I hosted a dinner party for Daniel's best friend Justin and his parents last Sunday evening, which, in my opinion, was s success. Terry was a bit apprehensive with my choice of menu at start as I was planning to do a Thai meal, he thought it would be too spicy for Joanne and Andy, also it wouldn't be suitable for Daniel and Justin, therefore I have to cook separate dinner for babes. Terry suggested to do Moussaka, a dish with Aubergine layers on top of lamb mince then with cheese on top, which would be suitable for both adults and babes. I wasn't keen on this idea as we had lasagna at Joanne's Dinner party, Moussaka would be too similar. Terry started to practise for two weeks on this dish, in the end, I still insisted to go back to my original Thai idea, but ditched his idea of having Chinese dumplings as starter ( because that would be too much hassle for me). In the end I decided on Thai pumpkin curry as main course with some shop-bought desserts as pudding.

I cooked Thai Pumpkin curry with chicken, this idea came- from Waggamma restaurant in Leeds. It is very easy to cook and taste great, both Joanne and Andy liked it. The most time-consuming bit of the whole cooking was peeling the pumpkin and cut it into small pieces, but I prepared this in the morning when Daniel was settle and playing around in the kitchen. I shopped all the ingredients on Saturday and cleaned house on Friday. They came around 3.30pm, the idea was Daniel can play with Justin and I can get on with cooking. But I cooked the Thai dish just before they came and pop it in the oven for slow cook pumpkin so In the end I can still sit down for talk in the lounge while keeping an eye on cooking in the kitchen. The main focus at this stage was left for cooking Daniel and Justin' meals. As Justin preferred fish fingers and peas (lucky i asked Joanne beforehand), I cooked some roasted potatoes and fish fingers and peas for him and Daniel. Terry was in charge of wine and dessert, Daniel played with Justin very well, Justin seemed to like Daniel's toys, Daniel is just the same, Daniel likes Justin's toys when we visits Joanne's house. We had a really good evening.

The key to throw dinner party with little kids is to organise! organise and organise! and keep it simple!

Fashion Conscious or Too Stubborn?

Daniel has been chosen his own outfit every morning for a while and I've been very happy to leave him to do so, I thought all the toddlers of this age would want to show their independence by making choices to some degree, but here comes the trouble: while the winter draws in and the temperature is getting down fast, Daniel seems still insist to wear his summer clothes, e.g. his bus top, which is a short-sleeve T-shirt , and it is Daniel's favorite. Every morning when I try to dress Daniel for going out he always tell me: ' choose one... choose one...' then he opens his shirt drawer and pull the 'bus one' out or his Bee Top out or pull some other summer clothes like shorts out. I have bought 7 new long-sleeve shirts for him since last month and Daniel would cry over each single new clothes I bought for him. First I thought maybe he doesn't like the pattern on the new shirts, then I bought some more with cars, fire engines etc. on them. It still ended the same with Daniel crying over it. Then I took him shopping and asked him ' do you like this one with diggers on it!' Daniel answered: 'Put away... put away... don't like it...'

Yesterday I was getting so stressed in the morning to get Daniel in his clothes because all his favorite tops and coat has been washed. I had to force a new top on him and he screamed as usual and said 'take it off...take it off... too much!...too much!', He made me laugh by saying 'too much' also made me felt so bad about forcing on him. I don't know where he picked up this phrase 'Too much' from and I certainly didn't teach him.

Terry think Daniel is fashion-conscious, which is taking after me. But I know Daniel just doesn't like the things he doesn't familiar with...

'...Had busy day...'

Had busy day!....

who's that?

what?

Daniel has been 'on the phone'(my phone) for ages. While he was talking (pretend talking) to whoever he think is, I got the chance to grab the camera. Here are his conversation:

'...swimming...swimming... Justin...Justin mum... pool closed... water park...Justin upset...coffee...

bye,bye,bye...Popo...' then he pressed the button; pressed button again:

'... had busy day! ...(long babble)...Hannah...Bye...'

What Daniel was trying to say was ' We've been swimming with Justin and Justin's Mum. The toddler pool was closed, we went to the water park instead. Justin was a bit scared of the water park and he was upset for that. afterwards we had coffee with Justin and Justin's mum at the swimming pool'

It looks like that Daniel has already understand how to use phone for socialising. He really made me laugh by saying ' I had busy day' I never teach him about this sentence and he must pick up from somewhere and applied in the right context.

23 month old

Daniel will be a two-years -old in a month time. The nursery has told me that they intended to move Daniel to the toddler room a month ago, but Daniel refused to move up the class as he's been very much attached to the staff in the baby room, they put him in the toddler room for couple of hours each day as trial. however, after a while, Daniel would rush back to the gate in front of the Baby Room shouting the staff's name 'Jade...Jade...get baby...'; '...don't like it...' ; 'I don't like it...'. Jade is the one who always look after him in the baby room. On the mornings of my working days, if I'd mentioned Jade's name , Daniel would quickly go to fetch his shoes and say 'shoe on... shoe on..., jacket on... car...', he would stop dawdling immediately and get ready to go, this is the way I used to speed up the process of getting out the house.

For some reason Daniel still calls himself 'baby', despite of the fact that I keep telling him that 'you are not a baby anymore, you are a big boy now...', he call himself Daniel sometime, but not as often as 'Baby', the other word he used to refer himself include '宝宝' (bao bao), less frequent one '丹丹' (Dan Dan), his Chinese name. Daniel's language development has been so good that he constantly amazed us. He has a very large vocabulary on English, he likes talking about his days, I really enjoy the moments when I come back home from work, Daniel rushes to me telling me all about his days. He would do the same when Terry comes home from work. He says words like 'bulldozer', 'aubergine' or 'elephant' very clearly, which, i think are quite hard for baby to pronounce. The most amazing thing Daniel likes to do is to show off his skill of finishing the sentences in the book. No matter which word we choose to leave blank, He can finish all the sentence in very long story, like Amanda, the Panda, I thought this maybe because he is too familiar with the story. Then, i noticed that some of the new books i have just read to him only for 2 or 3 days he can do the same trick, like the new book Godilock and the three Bears I bought for him last week. And Daniel's interest on Chinese is just picking up, now every night he would require to read Chinese books, his days normally finish in reading Chinese book, and now he demand to watch Winnie the Pooh in Chinese, he used to pretest if I dare to put his DVD in Chinese, and now he would say ' Winnie pooh Chinese... Winnie pooh Chinese...' he can say some Chinese nursery rhythm, like this one

胖胖敲鼓，敲乒乓; 乒乓鼓响，逗胖胖; 胖胖忙着挥动棒棒.

Looking back, it was so silly to worry about that he won't be talking, but I did have this sort of worry and have read a lot about autism, I remembered I've read a rather touching autobiography book about autism titled Daniel isn't talking.

Harewood House

It meant to be Autumn now but it was so sunny and warm today.We took Daniel to Harewood House today, which is an hour's drive away. Harewood House was home to the Queen's cousin, the Earl of Harewood, and was built in the mid-18th century. It has a splendid landscaped garden around a small lake and acres of woodland. The terraced garden behind the house reminded me of the The Palace of Versailles in Paris, and now it was turned into a nice terraced Cafe for people to sit there to admire the great view of the lake and the acres of woodland below it. As usual, the first thing we did when we arrived there was sitting in this nice Cafe. Daniel liked the creamy scone. After the coffee we took a walk around the lake along the shady path, which took an hour or so. then we took Daniel to the adventure playground and visited the Penguin House, as the last activity, we visited the Stately home itself, which house the exhibition of 18 century kitchen, the familly's collection of arts etc and the familly's collection of Chinese objects. Throughout 2008, Harewood is celebrating a long standing connection with the arts of China.

In 1988 around 20 sheets of hand painted Chinese wallpaper were found rolled up in the outbuildings of Harewood House. Research showed that the rolls would form a complete scheme, possibly hung in the Chintz Bedroom by Chippendale’s men in December 1769. the wallpaper, described by experts as "possibly the finest example of Chinese wallpaper anywhere in the World" has been painstakingly conserved and hung in the East Bedroom on the State Floor of the House.

Daniel enjoyed the walk, the playground, and the most exciting experience today for him was watching the penguins, he was getting really excited and was literally shouting to everyone with his finger pointed to the penguins ' Penguin...penguin!....' it was not the first time he saw the penguins. He's been to Marwell Zoo couple of times and saw them couple times. The reason he was so excited to see penguins in real today was that he's been hooked on the Pingue DVD recently. For the stately home itself and the exhibition, Daniel said 'I dont like it!' ...he amazed us by saying the whole sentence...