40 Months Old

Dear all,
I am 40 months old now and I am really talking a lot! The past few days, I had become more instructional in my speech. The phrase I often use is, "I show you". For example, when I feel like settling down to sleep, I will ask Papa to leave my bedroom and go back to his room. I will say something like "Papa go back to hotel room. I show you" and then proceed to walk to my parents' bedroom where Papa will sleep on his own while Mama settles me.

Mama is also quite tickled by statements of evaluation that I made. For example, I would say,"Sometimes, I play iPad, mm, not bad." "Sometimes, I go Science Centre, not bad."

Mama suspected I caught the phrase"not bad" from watching Hi-5 as it was said by Lauren during her segment.

Last Friday, Papa fixed a broken toy for me and just now, when I was playing with it, I remembered my father's labour and said,"Good fixing, Papa."

Mama guessed I picked up the act of specific praising as sometimes she will praise me specifically like "Good listening, Daniel"

With almost daily practices with my parents for the past few weeks, I had also learnt to say the Lord's prayer. I can now recite it on my own but recently, I had been omitting some verses. Occasionally, I will break into the Lord's prayer on my own and it goes something like, "Our Father in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.."

Yes, sometimes, I need a word of prompting here and there but I can generally say all of the above. When Mama hears how I omit the front, she will guide me to say the verses I had missed out.

Also, I can now list things. A few weeks ago, Mama was so impressed to hear me say I want to eat "Fishballs, and soup, and rice, mushroom and noodles" for lunch. Although she can't remember the exact sequence, and the exact words, these were the 5 items I had specifically asked for. Mama thought the fact I can make a list is really a cognitive milestone for me.

I can also list the "No" rules Papa set for me. They are no pinching, no screaming, no running , no scratching and no pushing/no snatching. Mama has also taught me to move my fingers to indicate numbers from 1 to 5. I can hold up my thumb and index finger to mean 2.

The week that passed, I had been pretty hooked on playing Angry Birds with my parents' iPad.

That's about all for the moment. Mama had more to say but she lost her efforts when the Internet connection failed for a little while, and so she has to re-type everything again... kwa kwa kwa kwa... ;(