The Elmo tent that Calvin got for his birthday has become the boys’ latest favourite toy at play time. They would go in and out of the tent like playing hide and seek or Athan would throw in all his favourite stuff toys and sit in there with them (while sucking his thumb) or Calvin would pretend play to be me or his dad, telling Athan off or telling him what he should do…. the tent actually provides quite good entertainment for the two boys.
These two monkeys have been playing a lot more recently which also means there’s a lot more fighting and crying! Although, I have to add that they are playing well together — well, better than before. Athan is copying Calvin in almost everything, especially in speech and so we have seen some good progress in his speech recently. He has been trying to talk in short sentences made of three words, e.g “ba ba he shui” (pa pa drinks water) and he is also into saying “NO” these days. He has a mind of his own that is almost always opposite of what I want him to do. He throws tantrums when not given his way, but his tantrums are short-lived — about 10 – 20 seconds. One thing remains the same — he is still loud and fierce when upset. 🙂
Athan is an easy going little boy. He is easily appeased (for now), especially with food bribes. He loves to eat and drinks water. He can finish his whole bottle of drink (250ml) at one go if no one stops him.Oh, another thing about Athan — he loves to look at worms and bugs and he also loves touching them!
Calvin is bilingual at the moment — English and Mandarin. He switches from one language to another quickly depending on who he is talking to. However, his English sentences are not that complete and he struggles for the right words sometimes. Even so, I am glad that he is not confused by the two languages and can speak both languages quite confidently. He is very easily distracted when it comes to sitting down to learn how to write or draw. He will just hold his pencil and doodle something and say “finish!” and ask to play. This is probably a typical boy’s attitude. Anyway, I think he still learn something through his play time — depends on what he plays with. He loves to build and fix things. He can amuse himself for a long time with a set of blocks building all sorts of things — without his brother’s interruption.
Calvin loves going to his kindy classes. He looks forward to going to his school every Friday morning and when I ask him whether he’d rather stay at home with me, his answer is always “no”. I know I’m silly to ask such a question but I just want to see his reaction. I can truly say that he is enjoying kindy and his friends. They are having a pirate theme this term and so each week he brings home something pirate-ty. Last week, he brought home a treasure box. So interesting.
Both boys love playing with their dad. They get very physical when they play e.g wrestle on the floor. It seems very natural for them to play this way. I know Robin is very keen to teach them martial arts, but they are still too young. We’ll see who has the interest to learn.
Robin and I always talk about the boys at the end of the day, and he always say to me “they are growing up so quickly and soon they will lose all their cuteness, so enjoy them while it lasts!”. He is right.