the phone

cant remember whether it was yesterday or the day before when jasper said a lot of things to the phone "hello, hi mama, ok buy bye", he held anything that looked like a phone (eg TV remote, calculator etc) to his ear or the side of his head and said all these things.

Jasper at 19.5 months

He laughs all the time:

Jasper running downhill:

Jasper on a slide:

note: these pictures are snapshot of my video clips as it is very difficult to take pictures of him, he is too fast!

Jasper at 19.5 months - I use the doddle board to write each word down and he recognises and reads each word out - hi, eyes, nose, mouth, cat, clap, baby, chinese equivalence: da(big), siu(small), yan(people) etc. Then he slides the bar of the doddle board to clean out the word saying "bye bye _theword_" eg. bye bye nose(when the word nose is written down). Its good that he doesn't spell out the letters, he reads "hi", "10", "16" (he says sixteen, not one-six, but he can read individual letters and numbers.

When the word clap is shown to him he says clap and claps his hands. He also makes mistakes sometimes, when i write down the word "cup" he says "up". He can just about count from 1 to 10 in cantonese, can count 1 to 20 in english though 1 to 10 (1-10 in reverse as well) are more fluent than 11 to 20. Just about able to count 1 to 10 in turkish.

I have lost track of the new words he speaks but i will try to record them whenever i am able to. I give him empty water bottles to count with. I now buy even more wooden peg puzzles as these seem to be the only toys that hold his attention, these puzzles are about to fill the storage box.

He is down to 1 - 2 day naps. He shouts very loud for attention after doing a poop. He only kisses people today first time, i asked him to kiss mummy's face, nose, eyes etc or kiss daddy's face, it could be heard.

I bought a pair of second hand Osh Kosh size 8 sandals which fits him much better than the Clarks size 8 sandals, hopefully these shoes will last him the whole summer, he has skipped size 7 sandals completely.

He has lots of requests now - when i am driving he would ask for biscuit, water, milk even ham! Occasionally he would describe 'ting che'(car stops), 'joone jaw'(turn left),'joone yau'(turn right) while i drive, as i say these things to him when i drive. He knows red lights and green lights (traffic light).

He has picked up a lot in a short time, i was so terribly worried he was abnormal as he only started to point at things around 17 months, while all the other babies point around 10-11 months. After all these, there is still not much luck with cutlery, he is having all his fluid intakes with a straw, still no luck with an open cup.

He drinks very fast as he holds his breath when sucking from the straw, he sucks and swallow it 4-5 times before taking his next breath. He can finish off a cup of water or cold milk after a play in no time. I cant feed him as he refuses to be fed, he still eats with his left hands and reaches for things with his left hand, and has not switched to right hand, or will he ever?! However, when he climbs stairs he starts with his right foot and right hand.

No luck with rice or congee EVER, i have tried everything(even my friends tried to feed him but no luck)! He has been on pasta, udon or noodles, together with neatly cut fried egg (mini cubes), meat and stir fried bak choi(vegetables), carrots.

When he wants to be somewhere else he says "up" meaning please pick me up, he also says "po po"(hug) too. Whenever he finds something or anything - it *belongs to him as long as he is holding it, if we try to reclaim possession of that object he would throw a very bad tantrum.

He is surprisingly polite, he says "ta" (sometimes in chinese) when he is given something. He also says social words hi, hello and bye bye. He doesnt cry when he falls, i find little cut wounds or grazes here and there but he never cried. When he is at the park, he loves picking up little twigs and leaves and hold on to them when he is going down the slide. Sometimes he gives those little twigs to me as a present. He still crawls on hands and feet sometimes. He can walk up the stairs though occasionally he prefers to crawl. He unplugs the bath plug and says 'bye bye bath'.

He is very cheerful most of the time, he giggles all the time. He cries very loud when he is extremely tired or when he wakes from a bad sleep, or when someone takes his possessions.

Unfortunately he pronounces star as 'dar', and stars as 'dars', he can say 'sing sing'(star/s). I tried teaching him to say biscuit but he skips the 's'. He knows which one is mummy's car, he can read my number plate. He is still in a stroller because he refuses to hold hands and would wander off somewhere instead of walking alongside an adult.

He is still very attached to his teddy bears especially for sleep.

I took him to another nurse for a health check when he was 19 months, she said his fontonelle has not yet closed and asked me to bring him back for another checkup in a months time. His weight, height and head measurements are at the 75% quartile on the boys charts.

mixing languages

he is starting to mix languages, points at and says 'eyes','nose','mouth' and then suddenly 'ngaartau'(forehead), 'mean'(face)... He holds a tv remote controllers and puts it against his cheeks then says "hello", as if it were a mobile phone. He has only started to develop some separation anxiety when i say bye-bye and close the door behind him he cries very loud. He says 'di-oo' or 'di-u' for the letter "W". He also says beet for 'feet'. Some new words include 'donkey' & 'lamb'. He now wears a pair of Size 8 Clarks Sandals. I took him to the pet shop and showed him some puppies he said "cat" I corrected him "dog" he then said "dot" !! Its amazing how he is soaking up languages like a sponge with water. When he sits at the back of the car, he would say "beng"(biscuit) followed by "beng"(biscuit), and then "nai-nai"(milk) and I would offer him these things if i were not driving. He refuses to wear a hat but loves to have his shoes put on as he expects outings after the shoes. He says "apple" for any fruits that he doenst know the name of.

Swim lesson

Waiting for the lesson to start:


Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, humpty dumpty had a great FALL....!


Took Jasper to his first swim class this year, he giggled a lot while the other kid cried from beginning to end. Funny how when we carried him leaving the poolside when the lesson finished, he said "bye-bye bath!". We then went to a birthday party, when others were blowing candles and applaused, he chuckled and clapped, and made everyone laughed even louder the second time round. I can be completely "hands-off" when going to the park as he is now able to climb up stairs and slide down steps on his tummy, he can play slides on his own by going up to the top and sit himself down followed by sliding down on his own. His spoken vocabulary is over 70 words all languagues combined(compared with 10 words last month!), but he can understand more than he can say. He can read the whole alphabet except "W". He counts up to ten (skips seven) and then followed by fourteen. When he has had enough of some food or if there is some food he doesnt like, he would offer it to others or feed it to others mouth. He cries and throws himself to the floor when someone uses his force to take something off him(potentially dangerous for him), so we try to hide away things he is not supposed to touch but it is not easy when visiting others house.