Growing and Learning

By God's goodness, Polly continues to arrive at her baby milestones surprisingly fast (to us at least :), lifting her head for a minute at a time and being able to track moving objects from her second week, sucking at her hands, smiling and cooing by two months, and drooling and sleeping 'through the night' at three. Just last week at three and a half months she suddenly was able to roll over from back to tummy with some difficulty one day, and with ease the next. Now she rolls over almost immediately most of the time when we place her on her back, and starts to fuss occasionally when she is prevented from so during diaper changes. The last few days she started to chuckle at Papa's antics. Mama's had significantly less success in this area--I suppose Papa's got the funnier face.



Pepe's milestones these days? We'll definitely count an increased sense of responsibility and nurturing behaviour amongst them! She's really acting more the big sister nowadays, hugging meimei, 'carrying' meimei, and, to our heartwarming amusement, sometimes successfully comforting a crying meimei by 'shushing' and gently rocking her rocker chair. Pepe's also getting noticeably better in tidying up and organising her things. We know from having observed her that she is able to categorise different objects (shapes magnets, different kinds of toy kitchen objects, etc.), and even pay attention to detail such as picking up every last scattered piece of her miniature Hello Kitty playground set. So when she says "I don't know," to our command to tidy up, we know it's a matter of the heart and not actual ability. Linguistically, it's cute how she likes to say "I think so," or "I don't think so," and also "maybe," and "but maybe not" (in response to "maybe it will X"). It can get trying, however, when she attempts to challenge our authority by going "but first..." when asked to do something. Tedd Tripp's advice in Shepherding a Child's Heart has been invaluable in helping us make wiser and more godly decisions concerning how to respond and discipline in times like these. By God's grace, Mama and Papa are also growing and learning each day.

Tot Talk Update

Mama: How about we play with some jigsaw puzzles?
Pepe: How about we drink milt-milt? I want to drink Poyyi's milt.

Mama: Maybe it will rain today.
Pepe: But maybe not.

"Maybe" and "How about" are certainly favourite words in Pepe's vocabulary at present! She also surprises us at times with lines such as the one I heard her say at bath time: "I am soaping my own bearself."

Mama: Would you like a dinosaur vitamin?
Pepe: I want so many.
Mama: But you can't eat so many vitamins in a day...
Papa: Do you know what will happen to you if you eat too many dinosaur vitamins?
Pepe: I will get sick.
(Obviously not the answer Papa was expecting!! :)

Pepe has been asking me to change her name in the recent days, and it's been pretty amusing. So far, she's rejected all of my suggestions--from Poppo to Lollo--and usually ends up deciding that "Pepe" is still best, except at times when she prefers to be called "Elmo" (unconcerned that it's a boy name), or "Toddler/Baby Elephant/Cat/Dog/Monkey", or "Rabbit", "Piglet" or "Roo"; those are also the times when mama becomes "Big Bird", "Momma Elephant" etc. and "Pooh" and "Kanga". Yes, mothers have to be many things to their children.

It can be really fun talking to Pepe now, and our conversations have become much longer and interesting since Baby Polly came along and I'm many times able only to talk to Pepe (as opposed to physically playing with her or reading to her) while attending to Polly or doing housework.



And while Pepe does disobey and test our patience at times, there have also been so many, many times when I've just felt immensely thankful to God, and appreciative of the sweet patience of the girl on days when there's so much to do at home! Pepe would often be happily occupied eating a snack, looking at books, and talking to me about the weather, how the sun needs time to dry up all the rain at the playground, how silly and small Polly is... and much of our conversation inspired by the stuff we've read together, providing allusions, pithy lines, plots, characters and themes. I also simply love laughing with her over her pronunciation boo-boos such as pronouncing "k" as "t" (so it's "Mama tum here" for "Mama come here"), "l" as "y" (so it's "Poyi" instead of "Polly", and "Hayo" instead of "Hello"), and a difficulty with pronouncing the "ng" at the end of some words (so it's "sing a son.")

A current favourite nursery rhyme of Pepe's:
"The man in the moon came down too soon
and asked his way to Norwich.
He went by the south and burnt his mouth
with supping pyum cold pyum porridge."

Mei Mei!!!

Penny has this way of calling her little sis these days--an emphatic, long-drawn, somewhat overly enthusiastic and affectionate "mei mei!!!" accompanied by a big impish smile that reduces her eyes to mere slits. Polly would just look rather suspicious and a little wary, or maybe just a little caught off-guard, not knowing how to respond. It's amusing, really, but I'm glad to see Penny interacting more with mei mei in the recent weeks: patting her tummy gently when she's fussy, winding the mobile in the kitchen for her, showing her objects and wanting to help burp her. The girls are really growing fast and getting fonder of each other. Polly for her part seems to increasingly like to look at Penny playing. Guess it won't be long before they start to hatch naughty plans together...

Sleeping through the night

Polly turned 3 months old a few days ago, and gave me a most pleasant surprise by starting to sleep for 7-8 hours at a stretch at night. Because we tried from day one to avert the developing of certain bad sleep habits for Polly, she has always been the better sleeper than Penny at her age, but this improvement is quite beyond our expectations since we're not supplementing with formula. I'm just so thankful for her bigger tummy, that her colicky troubles are for the most part over, and that I can finally have some time to myself again in the evening, to read and to archive a little more of the girls' development and memorable moments in this way.

Playing, Working, and Resting at Home... some recent pictures

Polly can do that!

It's rude to poke your tongue out!
And don't sniff... blow your nose!
It's not quite right, it's impolite...
to fiddle with your toes!
It's very rude to play with food!
Or take off all your clothes!
Except if you are less than two...
You can do all of those!
~ "Don't Do That!" by Mick Inkpen