18 Month Snapshot

Noey at 18 months:

♥ is approximately 10.4kg and 84/85cm tall.

♥ has 12 teeth and is sprouting more as we speak. His canines and pre-molars on his upper jaw have pushed through but we're still waiting for the corresponding teeth to make their appearance on his bottom jaw. We can feel them just under the gums though so I'm sure they've been bothering him quite a bit, poor thing.

♥ has become very sticky to Mummy. "Mama! Mama!" can be heard at all times of the day whenever I walk out of eyeshot. Correspondingly he gets upset when I carry another child and will burst into tears while going "Noooo! Back!" (ie. put that baby back!)

♥ has blossomed into a very affectionate child. I'm glad in this respect he's nothing like his Mummy, who can be very stiff when it comes to showing affection. Besides clambering on the Mama obstacle course every chance he gets, he is very generous with his kisses and will sometimes come up to us (usually Mummy) to bestow us a kiss on the cheek (or on the nose). Never fails to melt my heart.

♥ still cannot smile properly for the camera.

♥ isn't so keen on playing with other children though he is friendly and would wave at them to say hi on his own accord. Today he even tried to give another little girl in church (who's 2 months older than him) a hug, except that they both ended up losing their balance and falling over. But for the tears, it was hilarous. He doesn't actively follow older kids around and if they ignore him, is happy to play on his own or make up his own games.

♥ unfortunately seems to have inherited his Mama's sense of balance. You can still see the shiner (which is now all green) on his forehead just above his nose bridge where he got a baluku from losing his balance while walking down a step in church last week, right under his Papa's watchful eye. Thankfully his hand-eye coordination seems to be more like his Papa's.

♥ is quite the chatterbox. He has a vocabulary of 200 words or so English words which he can pronounce fairly accurately (I don't count the ones which only his Papa and I understand, like "Ight" for orange) and while he can't string them into sentences yet, he is able to put the single words and hand-signs that he knows together to get himself understood. Today he went up to DD and did the hand gesture for "Giraffe" and said "Dance! Book!", trying to let DD know that he wanted this book. And then commanded "Read!". Every day we are ordered around by our little tyrant! He's also starting to add more 2-word phrases -- "Blue car", "Take bus", and alas, "No milk!" etc. to his speech.

♥ understands only a smattering of Mandarin. He knows to say "我" when you address him using his Chinese name, and can point out his eyes, ears, nose and mouth, though not always correctly. Oh, and he knows how to point at flowers and say "花" too.

♥ absolutely loves vehicular toys and construction equipment. This book is one of his favourites. "Dig dig dig!", he'd go when an excavator comes in sight. His Daddy told me that Noey is going to grow up to be a foreman after I told him that I was going to buy Noey a toy dump truck, to which I retorted that it is an honest job and there was nothing wrong with that. But I think all little boys just love big machines! (Noey also likes playing with kitchen sets but I've been forbidden from buying one for him. *grumble*)

♥ is a memoriser. He might not know the answer to your question but once you tell him the answer, he will be able to give you the right answer the next time round. I foresee he will do well in our rote-learning education system!

♥ can't quite get the hang of colours yet -- he can only identify Pink consistently. His favourite colour seems to be Purple and his default answer to "what colour is XX?" is Blue.

♥ loves to dance. You can usually catch him doing a jiggy when there's some music playing.

♥ is generally a happy little boy. As long as Mama doesn't get in the way of what he wants too much, that is. But on an ordinary day, his chuckles and squeals of delight can be heard throughout the house and that to me, is the best sound in the world.

Ok, that together with the sound of him playing quietly by himself! Bliss.