20 Months

Abby turned 20 months (1y 8m) last 20^th April 2016. 

Weight

Not measured. 

Height/Length

Around 82cm.

Teeth

Her lower and upper canine has fully erupted. First molars on her lower teeth are cutting through the gums.  

Motor Skills

• Whenever she sees water basin in her Leapfrog talking book, she would rub her palms together to gesture hand washing.
• She finds it funny when I put eye patches under my eyes before bed. There was one she came across with a broken shade which coincidentally has the same color as my eye patch, she tilted her head and place the piece under her eye, exactly like how I put my eye patches on :P
• Can finally gesture ‘good’ with her thumbs up (17042016). All these while, her ‘good’ was signalled with her index finger(s) pointing upwards.
• Loves to play with her deh-deh's DSLR's tripod. She could spend almost an hour on it. 
• Likes to 'heawp' (i.e help) mommy by putting the laundry to the basket, transfering dough into the baking pan etc. 

Photo taken at 20m1d old

Communication and Social Skills

• The first to say ‘Amen’ upon hearing silence after we have said our prayer before meal and prayer with the family at Ah Tai before heading home. She also  says ‘Amen’ after I led her to give thanks before drinking her milk from the bottle.
• Her understanding towards body parts (nose, eye, mouth, ears, head, hand, leg) has expanded to hair, teeth and fingers.
• Calls out ‘jie-jie’ loud whenever the pair of kindergarten twins drop by MIL’s shop to look for her. It was so sweet of them to deliberately drop in the shop most of the time before heading to their kindy nearby.
• Says ‘up’ when going up the stairs almost all the time and occasionally says ‘down’ when going down the stairs (sometimes saying ‘up’ when she goes down the stairs)
• Able to say (and understand) words ending with y (i.e; smelly, kitty, dirty)
• Other words she can say: milk, shake (during her attempt to dry her hands after washing), poot-poot (car), ‘mauu’(i.e mouse) when she sees Mickey Mouse print on her pyjamas, ‘to-to’ (for ‘gor-gor’ i.e brother) when she sees elder boy running around in the church.
• She remembers which photo displayed at the church has her ‘gu-po’ and ‘gu-gu’ in it. Whenever we pass by the notice board, she would stop and point out ‘po’ (her ‘gu-po’ i.e grandaunt) and ‘tu-tu’ (her gu-gu i.e aunt).
• From 'ta-ta', she is calling SIL 'ta-ge', or ocasionally 'ta-choo' (i.e tai-goo). SIL was of course over the moon :). 

Emotional Development

• She has developed leaps and bounds emotionally. She shows her fondness and generously hugs (willingly or being asked).
• She can fake a cry whenever the adults showed concern after a minor fall or bang :P
• Started showing signs of terrible two! Whenever we turn her down over something she wanted badly, she would go away and refuses that for good with both her arms crossed even though when we offer that to her after that.
• There was once when I reprimanded her, she poured out all the Duplo parts from the box probably to vent her dissatisfaction and ran to her daddy for refuge.

Food and Feeding

• Taken a liking towards oranges.
• Loves yoghurt. She has been taxing our commercially bought yoghurt from time to time and first tasted mommy's homemade yoghurt (050416). 
• Loves all kind of soup and always ask for second, third and more helping all the time. 
• Loves po-po’s signature corn soup.

Her Firsts

• First met Charissa gugu from UK and adores her from the first sight. Abby calls her ‘jie jie’ and that made her other ‘gu-gu(s)’ green in envy :P She even presented her coinbox to her gugu as momento (Mommy initially promised gu-gu to custom make a purple coinbox for her but unfortunately deh-deh’s 3D printer broke down)

Sleeping Patterns

It had been a month or so since we have implemented our bed time policy and adhering to it rather well. Upon getting home from Ah Tai around 8:30pm every night, our routine usually revolves around teeth brushing, pajama changing, some light activities (Duplo time, Leap frog LeapPad time, talking laptop), at least one page of her board books, video time of her selections as a reward and finally calling it off a day.

Records

• Down with runny nose and registered a mild fever of 37C and thank God recovered pretty fast (090316)
• Played with poster color but she doesnt seem to be very keen into it (040416). 
• Refused for haircut at the saloon even with much coaxing. Ended up her grandaunt took over the role during her shower time.
• She has hit more than 10 nos of balls in her collection, big and small and still counting!

Learning with gadgets

Little missy wants to take part in everything that we are doing. When I was working with my laptop with her around, she would cringe and insisted to be carried on my lap and lay her tiny fingers on the keyboard. Just a while ago, when I took out my laptop to work while she was busy playing with the broom pretending sweeping the floor, she hurriedly placed it down onto the floor and ran over to me. So, before I allow her to jump up onto my lap, I requested her to return the broom to its place and put her toys back to her bucket before we shared the laptop with two separate windows.

When I was checking on my phone, she would gesture up and down (signifying lion dance, to which she has currently generalized for all kinds of video clips) with both her index fingers, and uttered “teoh” (as in ‘video’). Despite many had been talking about 21^st century learning, many go against to the idea of gadgets introduction among kids (especially as early as 1.5yo like Abby). I came across to a parent who told me that she only allow her 5yo daughter to watch cartoon once in a week and the rest of her time are fully occupied with revisions and more revisions. 

Learning about shapes

But, in my personal opinion, a little bit of everything might not do much harm. My main intention was to allow her to explore and enjoy her childhood (with supervision).  Hence, I have to figure out more educational informal learning at this stage- where her curiosity perks up high. Having said this, I have made it a point that the boss and I must minimize time spent with hand phones or tablets. But, on the other hand, I will take them as a reward for her if she behaves well when I brushes her teeth and get her changed into her pajamas before we called it a day. Usually, she will be rewarded one video (literally) but usually it lasted longer as Youtube video usually buffers one after another automatically. When nothing on the list fancies her, she would shove it back to me and I took the opportunity to lure her to sleep :P

idgcugiggbbwwmsmmsmmzseaqz

Abby's typing (27022016)

Occasionally, when I am free I would allow her to lay her hands on my laptop. Once in a blue moon, I would guide her with app games on my Microsoft tablet or the boss’ Ipad whilst she is very good at picking and clicking on Youtube videos now.  She picks up new things really fast and I am still praying that I can muster more energy and time to make her toddlerhood a meaningful yet memorable one.  I am holding on the mantra to take all things in moderation and in fact, instead I am focusing to inculcate more values (i.e patience, responsibility) in her at this age which I think matters most and still working towards it. 

Pretend Play: Lion Dancing

This cheeky girl is still very much into lion dance performances despite we are almost entering the second half of the year. Having watched lion dances (live performances) for only a couple of times, she was hooked and has been demanding to watch them on YouTube almost all the time. Being an opportunist as she is, she would go near to anyone in the family holding on a phone, pointing both her index fingers upwards up and down gesturing lion dances. Hence, I have started to refrain from bringing my handphone out if not necessary these days. Until one day, she decided to do the stunt on her own (27032016) :P

The 'lion' girl

Lion dancing at Ah Tai's room

Famous Car (Part 2)

I have abandoned my project for almost a month now as I have been overwhelmed with work and the moment I got home, I have barely a few minutes to shower before heading out for dinner again. At this moment, I am so thankful that Missy was taken care by the in-laws and I have not much worries in case I get home late from work. The moment I see her welcoming me back home made me to brush off any of my plan nor any projects at home. I would like to spend as much time as possible with her although our routine revolves around dinner, and then getting ready for bed during every weekday nights :)

This is my (not-so) current progress. I am currently installing its rack & pinion gear set (Step 15) assembling the car’s piston (Step 18). Activity like this is extremely therapeutic after a long and tiring weekdays and how I wish moment like this could last a little longer :)

Piston parts

 Gear set parts