This was an exciting month for us. We had our first sleepover play date at my friend Lisa's in Brooklyn. We also spent a week in Arizona with family in the US and from Taiwan. Nathan is starting to understand more now and I can reason with him occasionally. He is learning to wait instead of crying until he gets what he wants. We are trying to prep him in advance of things to come so he has expectations and not get caught by surprise, which sometimes result in tantrums. We tell him "5 more minutes", or "this is the last time" or "first we do this, then we do that". It's hilarious when we would go in the room to tell him it's time to give us the phone back and go to bed, he would hold up his hand and say "5 mo' minute".
We learned the hard way that when he expects someone to leave but they don't, or if he expects someone to be there and they're not, that it can be very stressful for all parties involved. It's better to say bye to him and let him get upset for a few minutes, than him getting upset because he didn't get the chance to say bye. When we were in Arizona, he was sad when Jackson's parents would leave for the hotel. When we tell him that they're sleeping, or eating pizza, he'll remember that and repeat it back to us for the rest of the trip, which shows that he is learning to accept the reasons we give him. Perhaps from having to say goodbye so many times and our explaining things to him repeatedly, and telling him / showing him how to share with James, that by the end of the trip I think he became slightly more reasonable. Praise God! A concept that he picked up well is "yi-qi" which means together. Now he says it all the time when we do something or go somewhere together.
Nathan can count to 10 pretty well but can't pronounce 6 and 7. It sounds more like "nick" and "nemen". He has trouble with the "s" sound. He is also open to taking showers now so that's something new.
Dancing
One of the better play dates we've had because Nathan wasn't fighting over toys. This was really cute, they just decided to take over all the baby toys (there is a baby boy in the house).
Singing Twinkle Twinkle together. Leo is a really good singer for his age, and is actually in tune.
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| We were planning to Uber to Brooklyn for our play date, but Uber falsely advertised that they had car seats when they didn't, so we took the bus and subway. Nathan was PERFECT on the commute and held my hand everywhere we went. |
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| These two girls are so adorable. Lisa's daughter was super good with Nathan and treated him like her own little brother. |
It took Nathan many hours to warm up, but after dinner he and Ethan finally started having some positive interactions.
Early morning play time. I did not record all the fighting and crying over toys when Nathan refused to share even though they're not his toys. I was afraid we may never get invited back.
We finally decided to buy him an indoor slide after many instances of his trying to find random things around the house to slide down while saying "weeeee". Like this:
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=nPbVCNQknWI. He first folded the mat over to create an angle, then proceeded to "slide" down it. I thought it was brilliant and created the hold made slide for him. It was so cute and yet so sad, I finally gave in with the real slide.
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| Start of our trip to AZ! Nathan was great at the airport. |
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| Seasoned traveler - this is his 5th time traveling by plane! He is so adorable with his little backpack. I think many people were admiring how cute he was :) |
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| We got to the gate super early and I was afraid he would get bored. But nope, he loved watching the airplanes take off / land and going up and down escalators. |
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| Daddy's already half asleep before takeoff. Nathan even took a 1.5 hour nap mid-flight! |
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| Hanging out with lao nai nai |
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| Vina's family invited all of us over for pizza and play time. |
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| Playing train sticker book together. These two were funny to watch. After about 1 minute we usually have to step in and separate them because they want to hoard the toys. Good teaching moments though. Once or twice a week is just not enough for Nathan to pick it up, I think many times a day for a week straight really helped. |
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| Feeding ducks at the park |
Nai Nai's birthday celebration
This was pretty much how the entire week was with Nathan and John Mark. Nathan loves guh and guh and basically just followed him wherever he went. Every morning when he wakes up, he asks where guh guh is. Too cute.
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| Helping pao pao water the vegetables. |
Putting the grand kids to work in the garden. Watch James, he's so funny.
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| Walked to the neighborhood playground. |
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| Phoenix aquarium |
Fun time playing in Uncle Peter's backyard. Who knew kids can keep busy for so long with just dirt and some tools?
https://youtu.be/S6PDfYhB9B0
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| Of course, In n' Out. |
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| One of our last nights together, watching Cars. |
This is what success is like after many days of perseverance! Nathan would run away from Colin for most of the trip, but by the end of the trip, he loved playing with Uncle Colin.
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| Got the two boys to sit still by holding the iPad. |
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| Still got the gong gong touch! |
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