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.