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Rafe's 19 Month Birthday

Posted by sila
Monday 29 July 2013 at 06:28 am.
Used tags: alya, around_the_house, birthday, rafiq

During the whirlwind that was Ramadan, where Yaya and Papa both had (real) birthdays, Adik sneaked in to being 19 months old!

* Mouse over the pictures for captions

I was going through the archives and looking at Yaya's 19 month entry, and according to it, she had four teeth and two more were cutting through. They say that "every child is different", and they were not wrong. In contrast, Adik has at least twelve teeth with more sprouting! Not that I am comparing the two children, necessarily. I was just thinking about the fact that I was cooking a lot of foods for Yaya at this age, processing all the hard things (meats, hard veggies) so that she would eat a balanced diet - and I am not doing very much of that for Adik. This is because he is eating table foods now. We are trying to feed him our food rather than only making him special baby food. But that is because he has so many teeth and can actually bite and chew fairly well. Adik enjoys goldfish crackers, grapes, different noodles (he does not tend to like repeats with his savories - unlike Yaya who can eat the same thing every day for every meal), rices, etc. He seems to have lost interest in Cheerios, preferring (oh horror!) Froot Loops instead. He chugs the Pediasure and drinks orange juice and water as well. He does like peanut butter and will happily eat it out of the jar even (seriously!). During Ramadan, instead of mooching off of my breakfast plate in the morning, he mooches off my iftar snacks in the evening. Although I try not to give him too much chocolates or other junk food, we are trying to balance it out and allow him to try things off our plates, hoping that we avoid the toastivore trap that we fell into with Yaya. I should however point out that at this age, Yaya was not a toastivore and happily ate all the (balanced, healthy, nutritious, mostly organic) food that I made especially for her. But still - Adik does like to eat Yaya's toast as well and I don't want to discourage him from trying everything. I just don't want him to settle on eating only one thing for the next 3 years.

Adik is a very active child. He runs all over the house (the pitter-pat of his running gait is incredibly funny). Sometimes he runs races with himself, saying "Ready, Steady, GO!", sometimes he and Yaya are playing tag and running around giggling and laughing, and sometimes he's just running by himself for fun. He loves to play ball - throwing, catching, kicking, hitting. His coordination is pretty good. He is starting to be able to throw up and catch a ball in his arms. Or throw down and bounce the ball on the floor and catch it in his arms. He tries very hard to use the ping pong paddle (still not terribly successful there - but his intentions are pure). And he loves kicking around a ball. He enjoys playing games with people. He is also now making "vroom vroom" noises when he pushes a toy car or truck around the house, something I don't remember Yaya ever doing. I suppose, boys will be boys? When we went to the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery (essentially the Children's Museum in Dayton), whenever he saw a vehicle he could sit in he wanted to not only sit in there and hold the steering wheel, but he had to be coaxed away from it. He wanted to stay and play in the vehicle forever, not letting any other child have a turn.

Everyone remarks about what an easy-going child he is, and he really is. He can occupy and amuse himself with toys and play games with himself if nobody is around. And he is quite independent and likes to do things and try out new ideas. Of course, he does still love to copy Yaya. If Yaya is sitting and reading a book, Adik will get a book and go sit next to her. If Yaya is riding her tricycle, he will get on his little scooter and scoot around the house (he is getting really good at scooting himself around!). He will sit on Yaya's tricycle and look very dreamy - I bet he's imagining himself riding the tricycle as well. He is far too little now to reach the pedals or hold the handlebars while sitting in the seat (it's a large tricycle - it had to be or Yaya would not be able to ride it!). He is also learning to defend his territory/toys better and becoming a bit more demanding now. If you are holding something that he wants, he comes over, holds on to it and yells "MINE" (very clearly, not "MA" like last month). If Yaya tries to take something away from him, he does dig down and hold on and yell "MINE! MINE! MINE!" and if Yaya succeeds in taking it away, he will wail and cry for it. Clever boy! Not as easy going as he used to be. It is sweet to see them sit close to each other, heads together, doing something on the "big thing" (the iPad). Of course this peaceful coexistence is quite temporary, a minute later both are yelling because they disagree on the next step and are tapping at the screen differently and trying to yank the big thing out of each other's grasp. Adik is getting to the point where he will not be appeased with just the iPod. He wants the big thing too!

So language wise, Adik is just progressing in leaps and bounds. He says so many words and knows a bunch more. He has memorized "Moo Baa Lalala" by Sandra Boynton and can be heard randomly quoting it. He will also sit by himself and do "This litle piggy" to himself - which is quite funny. If Yaya has her bum in the air, he will point to it and say "Bum". His favorite word (and default response to any question) is "No". He is starting to sing along with music and trying to say the lyrics. He speaks full sentences to us, with intonation and gestures with his hands very well (of course the words are all baby babble right now but he is trying to communicate). If he falls or hits his head or otherwise hurts himself, he comes over, tears in his eyes, and wants us to kiss where it hurts. After the kiss, he is usually back to normal running around, with the waterworks magically disappeared. He knows body parts and can say some of the words (e.g., "nose"). In the last month alone, I think he has added another 10 words consistently to his repertoire - a grand total of possibly thirty or more words in his every day vocabulary. I am trying to speak some Malay to him - he knows a few words now. He is also amazingly, becoming literate! He recognizes the letter O now and says "O" when he sees it. He will also draw circles and spirals and say "OOOO". When he sees the letter S, he hisses "ssssssss". So he knows what sound the letter S makes. We couldn't believe it!

All in all, we are amazed and pleased with how Adik is developing. Now, let us move to the photos of how Adik spent his day: