The past month has been packed with activities as usual, and I’m thankful that we get to do so many things together as a family.
C hasn’t had to travel for a while now, so I’ve managed to get him to take over some of the parenting duties, like bathing Noah. It gives me a bit of a break, and the two of them have tons of fun playing with the water toys in the shower, so it’s a win-win situation! Noah loves bathing with C so much these days that he specifically asks for C, saying, “I want Daddy to bathe me. I have fun with Daddy! I like to shoot water and spray water at Daddy, you know.”
With his water “shooter”
Noah loves running and playing hockey whenever he can, and C is in charge of teaching Noah how to play hockey properly, so they play it at our lift landing after dinner sometimes.
Late Night Hockey Training
We haven’t been doing much in terms of homeschooling/home-learning, mainly because Noah goes to school for a few hours daily, and there isn’t much time before or after school. (You can read about what a typical weekday for us looks like in this post.) I prefer letting him play on his own, or we spend plenty of time reading together, and only work on learning the alphabet when Noah requests for it. I think he does know the entire alphabet, but I haven’t “tested” him, so I can’t be completely certain. Our activities are still pretty much passion/interest-driven, which means Noah gets to choose what he wants to do. He enjoys painting, and decided to paint his own face while painting on a piece of paper in the toilet. I was horrified of course, but had to pretend to be impressed by his work, when he told me proudly, “Look, mummy! I painted my face also. So beautiful, right?” Think this boy’s self-esteem is pretty high. Haha.
Painting in the toilet
Super proud of his face painting skills
He has also been keen to work on his cutting and folding skills, so I’ve been letting him practise with the Kumon books. He has gotten better with cutting in straight lines, though he still insists on using plenty of force, and has to be constantly reminded to adjust his hands as he cuts.
Cutting Practice
Noah still enjoys playing with his sensory bins, though I suspect he just likes driving his construction vehicles in the bean-filled bins. I recently got him this Learning Resources Helping Hands Fine Motor Tool Set
so I’m trying to get him to learn how to use the tools instead.
Sensory Bin Play
I made him clean up the mess he made
Learning to use the fine motor skills tools
I also recently got him this MightyMind Basic MightyMind Game
, as well as these
, but I haven’t been using them as often as I’d like. He was pretty proud of himself for being able to work on the MightyMind game on his own though, so I think I’ll let him play with that more frequently. I’m also slowly trying to teach him how to count with the bear counters, and I’ll write about these materials in a separate post after we’ve used them for a longer time.
“I did it!”
Learning to count
Noah still enjoys building vehicles with his Duplo sets, and frequently builds “tall cars” for us to play with him. He also likes playing with his train tracks, and is slowly getting the hang of building them himself.
Duplo mess
He loves watching his trains go round the track
In school, Noah seems to have developed a special interest in one of the girls in his class. When J returned to school after being absent for two days, the teachers told me that Noah followed her around all day that day, and took special care of her. He held her hand, and walked around with her. When she fell down while playing on the slide, he rushed to her, helped her up, gave her a hug, and even kissed her on her cheek! Hahahaha. We were really amused by this display of affection for J, and whenever I ask him about her, he will say, “I LOVE J!” Gosh, kids grow up really fast these days!
His Chinese teacher has been telling me that he has a very healthy appetite in school, often asking her for second helpings of the porridge/macaroni, and for a slice of butter sugar bread after that. I was surprised, because he has always rejected the bread that I offer him at home. In the end, I got some vehicle-shaped cutters from Daiso, and used them to cut his bread for him. Amazingly, he ate every single piece! I tried giving him some bread the next day, but didn’t cut them into shapes, and he refused to eat it. Sigh. These days, I prepare the vehicle-shaped bread for him, and he usually eats everything, though I still have to feed him sometimes.
His bread
Eating his breakfast
Tiger is now his all-time favourite toy, and he insists on bringing it with him almost everywhere. He naps and sleeps with it, talks to it, and sometimes, I find him pulling out sheets of tissue paper, supposedly because “tiger is crying and I need to wipe his face”. When I insist that he leaves tiger at home, he reluctantly does so, but not before he gives tiger a huge hug and kiss, and tells him, “I’m going out for a while, okay? I will be back soon. I love you.” I’m starting to think that we should get another tiger as back-up, in case this one ever goes missing!
“I love you, Tiger.”
He insisted on bringing Tiger along to the zoo
Napping with Tiger
Good morning, Tiger!
He loves stuffing Tiger under his tee
Noah has been doing quite a bit more of pretend play these days, be it with his tiger, or any of his other toys. He talks to them, pauses to “hear”/imagine their responses, and carries out all sorts of elaborate imaginary schemes with them. It’s quite cute to watch, and we are often amused by the way he mispronounces words. I know it’s something he will grow out of, but for now, I wish I could capture these funny pronunciations on video, so that I can listen to them again when he’s older. When it’s time for bed, he will tell us, “I want to smuggle (snuggle) and sweep (sleep) with mummy.” Haha.
“Smuggling” and “sweeping” with Mummy and Tiger
Noah participated in his first run this month! He had so much fun at the Cold Storage Kids Run, and completed the 800m without asking to be carried at all. I blogged about it here, so I’m not going to repeat myself in this post, but I just wanted to say again that we were really proud of him. 🙂
Happy and Sweaty Finisher of the CSKR 2015
Just two more months to his 3rd birthday! Happy belated 34th month, sweetheart. We love you so very much.
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