18 mths - shopping in the supermarket.

Jasper has started asking for things recently by saying the words instead of pointing at them. eg He says "beng" for biscuit when he wants it. He also recognises combination of words such as "10" pronounces as "ten" instead of "one O". When asking him "what are these called" pointing at my eyes/nose/mouth etc he would reply in the language(english or chinese) that the question was asked. It has been good fun taking him shopping for groceries in the supermarket as i would tell him what things are called when he points at them. He still cannot pronounce "seven" and tends to skip the number when counting beads or his food pieces. Still made no attempts at pronouncing "W" but otherwise he knows and can read almost the whole alphabets. The size of his spoken vocabularies is now over 50 words English and Chinese combined. He loves saying "bye bye ____" when he leaves something/somewhere he'd say it eg "bye-bye B2" when he leaves the B2 level in the lift; eg "bye-bye car" after we have crossed the road, basically he bye-bye's a lot of things. He will start his swim class next week totally 11 sessions.

"big" and "Small"

I happened to have friends visiting from overseas who gave Jasper a few Chinese books as gifts and I casually taught him the Chinese words "Big"(Dai) and "Small"(Siu) and he learnt them within minutes. Also, when he has had enough of something he says it like "bye-bye grapes" or "bye-bye milk / nai nai" then trying to get off the chair.

18 months: not easy to get his attention

Went to the 18 months assessment, they were looking for 4 things (1)understanding the different body parts (2) kick a ball (3) draw with a pencil (4) stack three blocks. When asking him to kick a ball he went to the bead runner toy instead, therefore we showed him how to stack three blocks and hoping he would copy the task, he was trying to kick the blocks instead, and then when he was sitted and presented a pencil and a piece of paper, he held the wrong end of the pencil to attempt scribbing. Didnt bother me as I think he will learn to do those things eventually its just a matter of time.

Outside of the formal 18-mths assessments, he is able to say the sequence one, two, three(sometimes says hee), four(sometimes says whor), five(something similar), six, eight, nine and ten. I heard him say "F" and "Q" today. He is suddenly very interested in junior puzzles again. His volcabulary is now around 30 words (words that he says and uses) which does not including those he understands and not yet pronounced.

He is now more interested in using a fork to spear the food from his plate and puts it in his mouth, I help him spear his food now and then. No luck with a spoon for jasper yet, however, my girlfriend's 19-month-old daughter has been able to use a spoon for soup and rice quite a while back.

K, car

He said "k", "car" yesterday.
There are only 6 letters he can't pronounce: F,G,J,L,Q,W
He presses all the lift buttons he can reach and says B1,B2,D,1,2.... he pronounces 'd' for the letter 'G'. I dont see how they sound similar but oh well....

The Minority language

It is the first time in my life to realise the difficult position I am in as I am the only Cantonese speaking person for Jasper, everywhere else is English including the TV !!! A lot of friends who had mother-tongue spoken at home 100%(ie both parents) when they were babies and still not speak that language when they are in adulthood. They have at least 3 more interactions of the minority language(Cantonese) than my family: (1)mother-to_baby, (2)father-to-baby, (3)mother-to-father, other grandparents-to-baby etc. I don't know what would be a realistic goal for Jasper's Cantonese, but i know that full literacy or even fully verbal would be a lot more difficult to achieve than other family with a single minority language spoken at home. Then Jasper's parents-in-laws are starting to speak their heritage language to him and they(MIL etc) are second generation turkish-cypriots moved from London to Australian before raising the family. If I use the "one-person-one-language" method throughout his babyhood, I dont know what the family language would be when he grows up..... the thing is that I have been so 'bad' as I have been speaking 20% Cantonese and 80% English to Jasper.

his letters and numbers

He can now pronounce (and recognise) 4 more letters: M,N,U & Y. Can count 'one' and 'two' now, even counting his pasta, and counting eyes. There is only a handful of letters he can't pronounce yet: F,G,J,K,L,Q,W

happy new year, sydney 48C, jasper on a booster seat

Its really warm here today each breath I take feels like FIRE going in and out of my nose, breathing track and my lungs, my eyeballs feel cooked, the thermometer here reads 48C. We went to visit MIL and the pet mouse at the backyard died of heatstroke, and they keep offering ice water to the pet rabbit. They also recorded 46C at the Sydney airport. ITs already 8pm at night and temp is still 42C. The humidity is low but the dry heat is unbearable. I heard Jasper saying the letter "Y" or "why" the first time. He hasnt eaten much today due to the heat.

I have managed to move jasper from a large highchair to a smaller booster feeding seat - its a raised seat that sits on top of a normal adult chair. I took the large highchair to MIL's as the highchair takes up too much floorspace. He couldnt do without the highchair at some point in the past because the highchair has 7 height levels and 3 recline positions, the wide base of the highchair prevents him from tipping over when he crazily shake his body trying to get out of the seat. He can now do with a very basic raised seat.