He can draw/write..

I left Dillion on his own.. doodling on the white marker board. His creation:

A fish

Rectangle:

I was surprised to see D using his left hand to draw. He is a right hander not a leftie. But anyhow I'm not bothered since I known of lefties whom are smart people and aced in their studies and work (you know who you are :) )

Or perhaps may just be a case of Cross-Dominance

Fruits and Veg..

Dillion loves going to the supermarkets and I'm glad that our frequent supemarketing trips is also a learning process for him. I will always tell him the names of the fruits/vegetables that we see. He is now able to recognise most of them.

Today's lunch was soupy ramen with chopped cauliflower, carrots, corn and veg. Dillion was able to recognise and name them even though they were in tiny bits.

List of fruits/veg he knows:
Apple
Orange
Blueberries
Pear
Banana
Watermelon
Strawberries
Pineapple
Dragon fruit

Corn
Peas
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Carrot
Potato
Vegetables

What he can say..

Dillion can say a few sentence introducing himself..

Me (M): Whats your name?
Dillion (D): [pat his chest](My) name is Dee-Dee (tends to omit "My" and prefer to call himself Dee-Dee as thats his pet name at home)

M: How old are you?
D: 2 (year) old (omits "year" at times)

M: Where do you stay?
D: Shan (for Bishan)

M: Street?
D: 12!

M: Which floor?
D: 9 Floor

M: Whats your Daddy's name?
D: Vin

M: Whose your Daddy's Mummy?
D: Ah- Ma

M: Whose your Daddy's mei mei (sister)
D: Gi-Gi (thats how he calls his Aunt- Gu Gu)

What he can say..

Recently Dillion seem to be talking more and able to tell us what he wants.
For e.g.
"Daddy Bath" (prefer Daddy to bath him instead of me hmmph!)

when he wakes up and can't find his Daddy, he would wake me up and ask
"Daddy where?" then answer himself "oh.. Daddy work"

When he opens our wardrobe.. he will point to Daddy's uniform and say "Daddy work"
and able to identify our clothes and say "Mummy/Daddy's shirt".

When he need to get his shoes from the cabinet.. he will say "Knock knock" and knock on the door then say "Out Please" (suppose to be Come Out Please) which he learnt from GUG's zoo bag exercise or "Open the" (door) .

And he can recite A to D in right sequence.. and say almost all of the alphabet.
For numbers.. he can say 1-10 in english depending on his mood and now teaching him to say them in mandarin.
Seem like I been teaching him his ABCs but neglected his numbers :(

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And he is now a big boy whom seem to be shy or rather not willing to show his affection now.
When we ask for a kiss or hug from him.. he will reply "No, No" then run away.

One of the heart melting moments is when he does not see me near him in the house.. he will go round and call "Mummy Mummy Mummy where" and come looking for me!

Longest sentence..

Longest one so far from Dillion's mouth:
"A is Apple"

Words, Shapes and Colours etc..

Dillion can say many new words so I will just jot down a few that I can recall:

Pain
Scared (with a pat on the chest)
Feet
Sticker
Fan
House
Train
Cow
Spider
Belt
Horse
Airplane
Itchy

Colours
Recognises mostly red and black. He will repeat after me for rest of the colours.. but when i asked him again.. he will say Black

Shapes
Can identify most of it like Circle, square, Rectangle, Triangle, Star, Heart, Diamond.

And can say Cir, Square, Star and Heart

Phonics & ABC
He knows them quite well though he still can't sing or recite his ABCs in sequence.

Numbers
Recognise 1-10 but funnily he won't say the no. 1 but can count 2,3,4..

Songs
Still can't sing but will say the last word of the sentence.
e.g.
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

Songs he knows are: Twinkle lil star, Airplane song, Mr Sun, Lullaby Baby, Ba ba black sheep, Rainbow song

Words recognition
D can recognise words like Ball and Apple on the doodle board. I think flash cards really helps load.
And he can now pick up /identify his own name card during GUG lessons!
But he still can't say his name clearly..

Days of being a Toddler..

When I think back on Dillion's infant days.. its just seem like yesterday that he was such a tiny babe, oh so innocent look and how sweet smiling he was and how easy to cradle him. They are dependent on us to hold the bottle, bath them, carry them.. yadda yadda..

Seeing Dillion growing up and progressing to Toddler stage makes me feel so emotional..

He is much more independent now that he is walking and talking and

Few things that he can do at 21 months old :
~ Send his socks to the laundry basket everything he steps into the house.
~ Send his bowls to the kitchen once he finished eating.
~ Insist on almost total self-feeding now incl soupy noodle. He will 'scold' me if I were to attempt to feed him.
~ At times let go of my hands when we are out and insist on walking on his own. Thankfully he is not at he running stage.
~ He will look at me and pat my chest and called me "Ma-ma" for no reason.. ultra heart melting moments!
~ He is affectionate to kids which can be a over-whelming and tad rough on them .. probably we hug and kiss him alot.
~ His speech improved and this month he learnt and can say many new words that I lost track. He will tend to parrot every words that I asked him to say..
e.g. I love you, My Name is Dillion, I'm going to sleep.
Although he still can't say them accurately but I know he is trying!
~ I'm spending more time on flash cards with him now and he loves it and now will sit patiently for me to flash and able to identify most of the cards.

Terrible two (T2) updates
T2 is still in him...
He recently started this trend of spitting his saliva when he is upset/angry. Kevin and I talked/scolded and even tap lightly on his mouth to tell him that its not right but he still does not get the message.

When we carried him away to distract him when he is angry/crying.. he will beat our face.

I have to keep an eye on him when he mingles and play with other kids. I think his way of showing his friendliness is by patting them on their chest but some may view it as hitting.

20 Months old..

Dillion's been learning new words everyday..
Cat
Dog
Hat
Red
Black
Bed
Chair


He been speaking mostly single syllabus.. wonder when can we have a proper conversation. But I know I will sure regret once he start asking "mummy, why this, why that"

Animal Sounds
Able to animate the sound of:
Dog, Cat, Duck, Bird and Lion

Colours
Able to distinguish Red, Black and green.. but tend to get confused at times

Alphabet
Able to recognise most of the alpha and the phonics.

Motor skills..
Last but not least, he is WALKING!!

Rainbow song..

"I like red it's the color of an apple
Orange it's the color of an orange
Yellow its a lemon and a beautiful sun sun sun
Green its the color of the trees and lots of living things
And then theres blue for the sky And
Purple that's a color that's fun fun fun
When you put these colors side by side
What do you think you've done
You've made a rainbow And it's a really beautiful one! "

This song from Barney's soundtrack is Dillion's current favourite.
He is able to identify the colour 'Red' and 'Black' for our hair.

He is able to say "Apple" when i sing "red it's the color of an apple"

Stack..stack..stack..

I was in the kitchen preparing his dinner then I went to the living room and saw Dillion playing and stacking up the blocks on his own:




I remembered this was one of the assessment that the PD did with D when he went for his jab few months back.. D refused to stack and show her. Now hopefully he can perform this motor skill to her!

His 19 Months milestone..

Dear Dillion..
Mummy is so overdue with your 19th month's milestone/development.. or rather you have grown so fast that sometimes I kinda lost track on how many months old you are now.

Give thanks to all the time spent with you at home.. taking care of your every needs. Being there to watch you take your first baby steps, hearing you blabbering new words everyday, watching you sleep and waking up together.

You are picking things up fast now and parroting every words and actions after us. You also have a mind of your own and sometimes fickle minded too.. Mummy get confused when you want to be potty trained or whether you will still eat the food that you rejected before.

You will soon be promoted to Toddler stage and no longer a baby.. Mummy hope that your Terrible Two stage will be over soon.

Mummy and Daddy wanna let you know all sacrifices for you is all worth it!

Blessed 19 Months, Dear Dillion!

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New Words:
Pear
Bubble
Part - actually 'Fart' .. no prize for guessing whom he learn this word from
Book
Night
Hat
Popo - for Hipopo
A, B, C.. sometimes D
Open

Things that he can recognise and point at:
His backside
Pillow
Bed
Table
Chair
Tap

He can do:
Turn on the tap
Open a zipper bag
Nod or shake his head for Yes/No
Put the cover on the milk bottle after drinking and give it to us for washing
Take out DVD from player and put a new disc in it
Understand instruction : "Go over there get a piece of tissue and wipe your mouth"
Accepting and allowing us to put him on toilet bowl
Bring his snack bowl and throw it into the kitchen sink for washing
Identify most of Daddy & Mummy's clothings

He is walking..

I can say D is now walking much more than crawling although sometimes he forgotten that he can walk and will prefer to crawl instead.

Although he still can't walk steadily and need to raise both his arms to balance.. I'm grateful enough to be able to witness this important milestone.
Key word as other mummies friends have told me is "Patience".. D will surely surprise me one fine day!

Today both of us were alone at home.. and D busied himself walking all over the living room whilst i chill out on the sofa..
Video taken using my mobile thus the poor lighting..



Few days back, when we were at J8.. i held D's hands and we walked a distance. There was this Uncle staring and looking at D weirdly (D raise both his arms as he walked). Hey, my boy is a normal being ok!

D's baby steps..

I blogged that Dillion finally took his inaugural baby steps 2 weeks ago. He mastered his courage to walk 2 steps on his first try.

I did not blog much about his progress lately which i'm guilty about it.

Though he is still a crawler.. but we encourage him and cheer him on whenever we see him attempting to walk over to us.
He used to need us to hold both his hands to walk.. but lately, we were able to just hold one of his hands and he will walk although still not so steadily.

Recent video taken last weekend:


I hope D will be able to take off on his own in a few weeks time and thats when our nightmare will start!

Memorable Incident

Incident 1:
Dillion was throwing his stuffs all around the playpen.. I scolded him "Dillion, why must Mummy scold and nag at you everyday?"
Dillion look at me at say "Nag nag nag" with a cheeky smile.
Then i realise that my silly boy was actually referring to his "Neck"

Incident 2:
Walked past the florist and heard D utter "Flower".. was surprised as he used to say "F" for flower.
Turned back and point at the flower again and he said it correctly!

Incident 3:
when i sing "I love you, You love me.. with Great Big Hug and a Kiss from me to You".. Dillion will come and hug and kiss me. Utter sweet right!!!

Incident 4:
When we asked him "Who is the best" or "Who is the good boy"? He will raise his hands

A little about Dillion..

At 18 months.. these are Dillion's developments and milestones:

What he can say:
New words :
1. Neck
2. Eyes
3. Flower
4. Soo soo (Shoes)
5. Kick Ball
6. Bow Bow(elbow)
7. Air (Hair)
8. Um (umbrella)
9. Shirt
10. Walk
Current:
1. O (orange)
2. Daddy (improvised version of Da-da)
3. Ma-ma (Mummy/Grandma)
4. Ball
5. Apple
6. Nana (bananas)
7. Eight
8. Boh (Teochew way of No)

What he can recognise:
1. ABC
2. numbers 1, 8 & 9
3. Birds/Cat/Dogs/Elephant/Monkey/Frog/fish
4. Aeroplane/cars/bicycle
5. Most of facial & body parts. still learning where is his 'Arms, Shoulders, Knees
6. Pick up and recognise mummy's and daddy's clothes

What he can do/understand:
1. Pack his toys when we sing "Clean up clean up"
2. Able to sit still when its story time
3. Will grab a pillow to lie down proper when he sees milk and then shove the bottle to our hands when he is done
4. Give a wet kiss, a hug and a pat
5. Sleep through on most night but still need Mummy beside to fall asleep
6. Starting to shake his heads to answer 'No' (one of Terrible 2 behaviour)
7. Rub his hands under running water and shake them dry

Able to sign:
Please, Thankyou & Sorry
Car
Shoes/Socks
Potty & Diaper change
Milk
More,No more
Birds, Dogs, cat and fish
Brushing teeth/washing hands/shampoo
Pain
Hat

Motor skills:
1.Do a circular motion with both hands
2.Hold a pencil/brush and doodle
3.Kick a ball when sitting/standing
4.Able to shake instruments and stop it when instructed
5.50% able to self-feed. Can drink from a cup but with bit of spilage
6.Able to point at where he want to go or what he wants
7. Pull the zip up and down

Physical Development:
Although he is still crawler at 18mths but recently he is cruising much more.
Able to cruise when holding on to the wall.
And willing to walk when one hold both his hands.
Able to stand unsupported for 1-2 mins.

Baby Ethan & D's lil' steps

Went to Tricia's place to visit baby Ethan and see how well the new mummy is coping.
She has gone back to her original figure and doing well with breast-feeding! well done!


Dillion was sweet to keep coming over and stroke Ethan's hair and hands. He does have the makings of a protective big brother but then timing is not ripe yet.
Did not bring my camera thus was not able to snap photos of him and E. what a pity!

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At Tricia's place.. Dillion took his first baby steps.
He caught me by surprise as suddenly stood up and walk 2 steps to come and hug me.
I very much thankful for this milestone which I been waiting for ages. And I contribute it to the spaciousness of her living room which allow Dillion to practice.

When Dillion starts to walk .. I will give Tricia and Ethan a treat! Your house brought me luck!
Will visit you again!

Future Soccer Referee

We have a future World Cup soccer referee:

So happy that he manage to blow the whistle after teaching him. Read somewhere that learning how to blow is important for their speech development?

17 Months old..

I starting to lose track on how old D is now and always takes me awhile to answer when people asked.
Now that I'm the main care giver for D and I'm with him most of times thus I tend to forget to blog his achievement..

New words that he can say:
Shirt
Meow (for cat)
F- for flower.. he is trying hard to say it
Ma ma 妈妈- sound like calling me but i would prefer him to call me 'Ma Mi'
shoes

What he can point at:
Shirt
Tap
Elbow
shoulder
Arms
Watch

What he can do:
Able to blow a whistle
Lift one leg up during bath when asked
Shampoo his hair and lather his body with one hand
Point at his feet when asked how to wear socks/shoes
Point at number '9' when asked

What he can sign:
Fish
car
Please
sorry
Thanks
Hat

Dear Dillion..
We pray for a happy and a healthy you..
Love you,
Daddy and mummy

At 16months..

Kiss
Dillion finally mastered the art of smooching. He can do a perfect flying kiss dependable on his mood.
We love demanding a kiss from him for the kick of it. He does not really like to kiss daddy.. but he will promptly give me a kiss on my cheek or mouth when asked. Well.. men don't kiss men right??

Speech
Latest craze now is 'Na Na' for bananas. Able to recognise apples, orange, pear & bananas at supermarket.
Still stuck with "Apple, ball, pear, Dada (daddy), Di di (baby), mum-mum (food, not me), neh neh(milk)"

Able to recognise
He is able to say it right when i draw or write the letter "A" on the doodle board and i think he can also recognise "8" and both sounds the same.
Able to correctly point at "umbrella", "bag", "shoes", "keys", "elephant", "bus" and "car".

Body parts
Know where is his "Neck". And now teaching him "cheek" & "forehead"

Signing
He is able to sign for "Milk".. which is good as he will let us know when he wants it esp in the morning.
Also seem to be able to understand signing for "More" , "water", "eat", "fish" & "bananas"

Yes /No
Teaching him to say 'Yes'.. but always shake his head instead..
Seem like he is doing it on purpose!

Potty Training
Progressing well as he do his poo business in it. Sometimes when i asked got "Sai sai anot?" He will reply "Boh" and sign for 'No more'! So cute!

Others
Still loves reading and playing with flash cards but have no patient for bed-time stories.
Able to climb up and down the staircase and slope unassisted.

What he can recognise..

At 14 months, Dillion is able to correctly point at his face/body parts when we ask
'Where is your:
Hair, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands, stomach, fingers, leg and toes.'

Past few days, I been teaching him 'Forehead, chin, neck & knees.. and it depends on his mood to point them correctly.

Some funny actions from him:
~He will stroke our hair when we ask "how do you shampoo hair"
~He will point at his tummy and give a smile when we ask "Where is Dillion's tu-tu (for tummy)"
~He will blink real hard when we ask "Where is your eyes"
~He will offer his cheek to me instead when i ask him to kiss me. Such a shy boy!
~He knows how to flag for the bus and taxis

He can finally do a proper 'Flying kiss' but without the muack!
He will offer a hand shake with people he just met when being asked to
He can do hands gestures when i sing 'Itsy bitsy spider', 'Twinkle lil' star', 'Mr Sun sun.. Mr golden sun' & 'Wheels on bus go round and round'.
He will stick out his index finger when i say 'One'

Flashcards
Instead of usual ways of flashing cards. I get him to pick up cards amongst them like "socks, car, apple, ball, umbrella, cat & dog".. which are the few he can recognise.
When he sees a dog on the street, he will say 'Wo wo'.

Speech
Favourite words is still 'Ball-ball' at everything that is round.
At times he will say 'Apple', 'Where', 'Di-di (for baby)', 'na-na (for banana)'

Physical development
still a crawler but attempting to stand.
Able to climb up the staircase independently