24-month old

It's been 12 days since Yiu Yiu's 2nd birthday. This mummy, as usual, is late in updating her progress over the last month. I have not measured her height and weight since the last visit to the doctor but I've noticed her shirts/blouses and trousers are getting shorter. I hope she's at least 80cm now, coz her paediatrician said that multiplying her height at two is indicative of her adult height. I also have no idea what's her weight but I think it'll be less than 10kg, even though she seems to be a little rounder.

She is drinking a lot of milk these days. Previously, she sometimes can't even finish 4oz but she's now drinking 5 – 6oz each time, and more frequently at that. Her record was taking 10oz at one going which is a big deal for her. Oh, she's completely weaned off breastfeeding but will sometimes suck for a split second before she smiles and moves away. And since she now takes a bottle of milk before sleeping, she rarely wakes up in the middle of the night. So mummy finally regains her uninterrupted sleep.

She takes more solid food when she's at the babysitter's than when she's with me and hubby. When she's with us, she insists on eating on her own, and more often than not, won’t finish her food. At the babysitter's, surprisingly she allows the babysitter to feed her. As a result, she can finish ¾ bowl of rice with dishes at each meal.

She recently refuses to sit on baby chair. At home, sometimes she'll sit on the portable booster seat tied onto the dining chair, or she'll simply resort to kneeling on the chair. When dining outside, we'll just stack three regular chairs up for her.

Development wise, what amazes me most over the last month is her linguistic development. Almost every day, a new word of phrase spews out from her – sometimes it's in English, sometimes it's in Mandarin or Cantonese. She's beginning to be able to express herself better but most times, she'll have her phrases all in the wrong order. More of these in another post, hopefully it won't take too long. On the flip side, she's also picking up inappropriate words equally fast. Just the other day, the babysitter informed me that she called the older boy "stupid monkey". This happened when he was climbing from sofa to sofa and the babysitter's husband reprimanded him and said, "You little monkey". My smart alec little girl then chipped in and called him "stupid monkey". God knows where she picked that word from!

She's getting more stubborn by the day. But I noticed that she's the "sau yun ng sau ngang" type (using soft instead of hard methods for disciplining). If she does something wrong and is reprimanded, she'll simply sulk and refuse to say sorry. Only after she's spoken to nicely and explained what she did wrong would she apologize. She's also fearful when hubby and I get really mad at her. Whenever that happens, she'll cry and quickly come to us for hugs, and apologize. It's as if she's afraid that we no longer sayang her. Well at least there's still a way to "pau jai" (control) her.

Just like many toddler her age, she can be an angel one minute, and metamorphoses to devil the next minute. But she seems to know when not to behave badly – when we are in the company of friends outside of home. That's why all our friends only see the good side of her, and keep telling me how lucky I am to have such an obedient daughter. Little do they know that they haven't tasted the devilish side of her.

She still loves Barney but has started watching Pocoyo as well, a gift from Po-po for her recent birthday. She loves taking photos. Whenever the camera is in her sight, she'll give us this huge grin until her eyes disappear.

Her "keen nga ng keen ngan" (can see teeth cannot see eyes) pose

Making funny faces for the camera