I can’t believe my baby girl is already 1! For the next 3 months, I can tell people I have a 1 year old and a 2 year old .  Keira has been such a joy to have around.  So tolerant of the second child syndrome.  I feel guilty at the end of most days thinking about the amount of time I spent with her vs. Tyler at that age.

She is pretty much the definition of a “tzah zah-boh” (which in Taiwanese means feisty girl).  She doesn’t take any crap from Tyler.  He takes her toy, she takes it right back.  He pushes her down, she gets right back up and in his face.  Last night, they had an ongoing feud for over 5 minues where she would turn on the radio and begin to dance, then he would turn it off…she would turn it on…then he would turn it back off.  You should have seen the look of death she was shooting him.  He has also been bit multiple times during their very frequent tug of war battles. She’s been throwing tantrums since 8 months and will scream and throw stuff if she doesn’t get her way.

She started walking just shy of her 1 year birthday.  She still prefers to crawl, mainly because Tyler runs over to “help” as soon as he sees her on her feet.  And by help, I mean, he grabs her hand and then starts dragging her across the room.  So as soon as she sees him coming, she drops to the ground.

She can put the circle into the shapes sorter and shapes puzzle.  We’re working on the others! She LOVES playing with Tyler’s stuff…especially his trains and cars, which he is not too happy about.  I hear a lot of, “NO KEIRA…STAY BACK!” during the day.  But she pushes the cars around on the ground and can put the trains on the tracks. 

She loves to doodle!  We were surprised that she started doodling so soon.  Tyler didn’t start showing any interest in doodling until he was 2.  And he still rarely does it…he had a momentary interest in coloring, but he’s much more interested in his cars and trains.  She can doodle on his Magnadoodle for quite a while, and she’ll draw on the chalkboard.  I would give her crayons more often if she didn’t try to eat them every time.

She loves music.  She dances, hums along to music and plays her instruments.  She figured out how to use her play horn and harmonica.  I got her a set of Horner percussion instruments.  She LOVES them…it’s a little more expensive than other toy instruments but really great quality.  When you sing songs to her, she tries to mimic your mouth movements.

She only has a couple of words, Mama, baba, bottle (also baba),buy-bye, balloon and UM (when she eats).  And a few signs, bye, eat, bath, book, more, all done.

Aside from her independent streak, she’ll still a big cuddlebug.  She just loves to be held and when she’s tired, she’ll just lean her head against you and suck her thumb.  So cute.

She is becoming a picky eater. ARGH.  she will eat anything pureed/yogurt, so I will mix in all sorts of stuff in there: fish, egg yolk, tofu, etc.  I can’t imagine eating that combination myself, but she doesn’t mind it.  She used to love table food and hate purees.  Now she loves purees and hates table food. AAARGH.  Between Mr. T who won’t eat anything and her, my two very picky eaters drive me crazy. 

She’s currently:

19.5 lbs (24%ile…once she started moving, she lost all her baby fat)

29.5 inches (50%ile)

Some recent pics.  Sorry, most of these aren’t edited at all.  I started shooting in RAW so I would have more editing control in Lightroom, but then I fell way way behind in going through and editing my pics. I’m still figuring out LR, so it takes me almost an hour per pic to edit hahaha. Plus I’m such a perfectionist that I go in between setting the exposure at +5 vs +6 for half hour before I decide on one.  So I’ve only edited 3 pics so far hahahahaha.  I give major major props to pro photogs who have to go through and edit thousands of photos.

Starting to enjoy the Please Touch Museum:

Father’s Day Weekend fun at my parent’s house:

Aftermath of a pocky stick on a long car ride

Fun at home:

Her favorite place to sit….unfortunately, also Tyler’s favorite place to sit

Staying up late for July 4th fireworks:

Enjoying the playgrounds.  This is an amazing playground called Freedom Playground built last year a few towns over.  It’s 100% accessible for ALL kids, including kids in wheelchairs.  There are tons of tactile things for kids who may have autism or sensory processing disorders.  And it was built by volunteers from the area. (btw, the husband dressed her that day).

Our cuddlebug:

Her 1st birthday BBQ party (and the cheeseburger cake I baked for her)

The private cake we had just for the 4 of us

She ate her entire slice

All this time, I’ve been editing photos with Picasa, which is pretty basic editing.  I tried Photoshop, but didn’t get it (I’m not great at learning computer stuff unless someone actually sits with me and shows me what to do and no one near me uses it).  Then people started recommending lightroom which is nice for batch editing and a little bit of touchups, which is what i needed.  It’s great since you can fix the exposure for a bunch of photos all at the same time if they’re all taken in the same location.  If I wanted more special effects, like cutting a head off and placing it on someone else, then I would need Photoshop.  I just played around with it today for an hour or so.  There are a TON of things on there that I don’t know how to do still…so I’m excited to learn!  I’ve also started shooting in RAW since I’m able to recover a lot with all that stored data.

Here’s my very first edit. It’s not a great edit since I only figured out how to do 2 things today haha (dodge/burn and vignette).

Straight out of the camera’s too.  This was just-grab-the-camera-and-shoot moment, so I didn’t have time to turn on the flash or change the settings.  And it’s blurry since she was fidgeting, but there’s nothing I can do about that.

After the edit.  The color is still a little off and I didn’t fully master the lighting edit…and I can’t figure out how to crop!  But just from doing a few things, it looks so much better.

(btw, she figured out how to open T’s red ink pad and stuck it in her mouth)

The past month and a half have been big ones for Keira.  Until 8 months, she did nothing aside from sitting up unassisted.  We had no rolling or scooting or anything.  When she hit 8 months, she rolled and crawled within a few weeks and was pulling up not much longer after that.  Now she’s climbing the entire flight of steps, walking with a push toy and while holding onto our hands.  She is very very busy these days!

Her favorite thing to do is try to go after Tyler’s toys.  She barely played with any of her baby toys.  She just wants whatever Tyler is playing with.  He usually is not too happy about that.  She has been pushed quite a number of times.  Then, of course, he always wants what SHE’s playing with.  They do that tug of war thing all the time.  Our rule is that if he wants to play with something she’s playing with, he has to find another toy to replace the one he wants.  So he is usually very good about that.  He will walk around and find something, give it to her and then take the toy she’s playing with. (Although from an outsider’s perspective, it totally looks like he’s chucking a toy at her, then snatching her toy. hahaha).

She babbles all the time.  Usually she says, “papa” (hmph)…but sometimes she’ll say, “mama.”  Then there’s a wide variety of strange sounds….usually spoken with her shouting voice.  This girl is LOUD.  Once she opens her mouth, you can’t hear anything else.  The worst is when she’s in bed with us when she’s sick and she starts babbling.  It’s like she’s speaking through a megaphone right in your ear.

We gave up on purees.  We just give her table food.  Usually whatever we’re eating…in tiny pieces.  Well, not really the meats since she still only has her 2 bottom teeth.  Where are her teeth?!!!!!

No weight or height updates for 9 months yet.  We…uh…forgot to make her 9 month appointment.  By the time we remembered, the earliest opening was the end of this month…when she’ll be practically 11 months!  oops.  The receptionist yelled at us for not making the appointment after her 6 month visit.  EXCUSE US, but due to the nature of our jobs, we only get our schedules 1 month at a time and we’re scheduled for random days of the week, so we can’t do it 3 months in advance since we don’t know which days we’ll have off.  They yell at us every time we have to make a short notice (1 month or less) appointment…which is ALL the time.  We can’t stand the receptionists there…..at least the doctors are good and we don’t have to pay copay ever since that practice is an off-site clinic associated to the hospital where we work.

She is currently sick from her second viral illness.  She had roseola a month ago.  This time, it’s just a nasty cold she caught from Papa and Tyler.  Lots of boogers, post-nasal drip and cough.  I am usually reluctant to give meds other than tylenol and ibuprofen at her age, but I had to give her some benadryl to dry her up a little since she kept choking on her boogers when she lay derown.  She LOVES that stuff…..slurped it all up.  She made is seem so enjoyable that Tyler kneeled next to her and asked, “I want some?”  She was up at 1 AM, happy as a clam, after the benadryl last night.  Darn…I have one of those kids who turn hyper with benadryl.

Keira has a big time attitude.  In Taiwanese, we call girls like her, “Cha Tza-Boh”…meaning fiesty or even biotchy.  When she gets annoyed, you will know it.  She screams in your face and wipes everything in her reach off the table.  She started throwing tantrums at 8 months…throwing herself backwards and screaming.  It’s fun times.  Between her and Mr. Drama King, there are a lot of fake tears in this house.

First train ride:

Pulling up

Failing to scale the ottomans

Our little pianist

Best buds:
Holding hands in the car

Acting as Tyler’s watch out woman (T is ALWAYS in her jumperoo)

“Who gave you those horrific Thomas PJ’s?”  (wasn’t mama or Papa)

Sharing…sort of

(just wanted to say that the plaid thing is not our sofa pattern.  Our sofa is actually nice…but it’s fabric…which is why the plaid sheet is on it)

I feel bad…I have totally been slacking on Keira’s monthly updates.  Poor second child.  She is quite the little monster now!  We haven’t gone in for her 9 month visit yet, but at 6 months, she was 18.5 pounds, 27 or so inches…I wouldn’t be surprised if she hits 20 pounds.  She’s big…she’s outgrowing her 12 month clothes now.  I bought a bunch of really cute Tea Collection rompers for this summer in size 12 months, but they’re too small.  MIL is going to cut off the bottom so she can wear them as a t-shirt instead.  She is quickly gaining on her big brother, who can not seem to keep a pound on him even though we feed him so much (good) fat.

She never took to purees so I got frustrated and just started giving her solids around 8 months after trying purees for a couple of months.  She LOVES solids and is pretty good and “chewing” her food.  We gave her big chunks of apples in her mesh feeder and within minutes, she had chomped them into applesauce.  So far, we’ve given her bread, pasta, rice, broccoli, potatoes, chicken nuggets, yogurt and various fruits.

She has quite the little attitude and will scream when you take something away from her. She also is fearless and goes after her brother’s toys.  They do that tug of war thing with the two of them both screaming at each other.  If he tries to take something away from her, she’ll hit his hand or try to swipe it away. hahaha.

She FINALLY rolled at 8 months haha.  A little late on that one.  But she was sitting up unassisted at 5 months and was scooting around at 6-7 months.  She’s not crawling yet, but she’s on all 4′s and she rocks.  She does sort of crawl backwards, but no forward motion,  much to her frustration (more screaming).

She sleeps in her crib now.  We didn’t feel safe having her in bed once she rolled.  I miss her at night   Sometimes I’ll sneak in a nap with her in her future twin bed, which is a day bed, so the other 3 sides are enclosed.  She does okay.  She still wakes up at night a lot, but in general does okay considering we didn’t really do any sleep training. 

She loves cars and trains just like her brother.  She’s also starting to figure out her toys.  She loves the jumperoo and the play kitchen.  I took her to the playground that one single nice day we had a week or so ago.  She wasn’t too impressed.  Turns out she’s a sand eater, so I had to keep her off the ground the whole time (the entire playground is a huge sand pit).

She can sort of clap…she’ll bring her hands together when we clap and she can do high-5′s.  We’re starting to do signing with her.  We were surprised to see that Tyler remembered the signs from when he was smaller.

She just got 2 bottom teeth after what seemed like a decade of teething.

Some recent pics…I’m kind of ashamed to say that I didn’t have too many to choose from.  Tyler by this point had over 2000 pics.

Her favorite thing:

Her first back carry at 5 months:

Getting ready for some warmer weather (this hat no longer fits 2 months later)

Fun times with some help from Tyler

Yummy

Finally tolerating some tummy time

Exersaucer fun

Crazy hair

We swore we would never do headbands, but when one was gifted to us, we couldn’t resist

We went on 2 more preschool visits.  1 was a different location of one of the chain daycare/preschools.  We liked that one.  Really nice director, nice facilities….didn’t WOW us, but it could work.

Our last preschool visit was one run by one of our local churches.  I had heard great things about it, especially from a mom friend who also has very shy kids who did well there.  We weren’t able to arrange a time for a private tour because of our work schedules, but we were able to make it to their winter open house.  We LOVED this place…the classrooms were big, which several different play centers (kitchen, blocks, arts and crafts, cars/trains, etc).  It reminded me a of a mini Please Touch Museum.  They even had fish and other small critters in most of the classrooms.  They had a TON of Plan Toys (I LOVE Plan Toys) which must have cost them a fortune. 

This place has been open for a long time and the teachers’ tenure is about 15 years, so there’s very little turnover.  6:1 student teacher ratio.  Everything is well organized and the director was super friendly and knowledgeable about the different programs.  THIS is what I was looking for, but didn’t find in any of the other play-based preschools we visited.

We do have to potty train by the fall hee hee.

Basically by show of hands, everyone there wanted their kid in the same class as we did and they only had 2 slots. I was like great…we find one we love and there’s no room!  So we all handed in our applications and they said they would get back to us.  They waived the application fee for everyone because they felt bad that they would have to turn so many people away.  That was really nice of them.  A day later, we got a phone call to tell us that Tyler’s in!!!  I was SOO excited! He will be the youngest one in his class…the cut off is Oct 1, and Tyler misses that by a week, but they said it was fine.

They kept talking about parent involvement in events and the PTA and stuff like that.  I didn’t realize that started in preschool!!!!  I hope I’ll have time to participate in something so I don’t look like the loser mom who doesn’t care about the school.

We only looked at 1 school today.  Today was a brand name, chain daycare/preschool.  I had kind of low expectations going in…but was pleasantly surprised by their program.

Pro’s:
-teacher seemed wonderful and engaging.  She was in the middle of helping with potty training when we came in, so tyler won’t HAVE to be potty trained (we really hope he will be by the Fall…we plan on starting if he starts showing signs of being ready…but he’s one hard nut to crack.  we’ll see what happens)
-Daily schedules and what they did are posted on the door for the parents to see.
-Monthly curriculums are posted for the parents to see.
-3 parent teacher conferences a year
-A half day is 5 hours (all the other programs are 2.5-3 hours for a half day).
-They have a 2.5-3.5 year old class (older 2′s and young 3′s)
-They have camps in the winter, spring and summer with 12 themes to choose from
-The part I liked best….”extracurricular” enrichment programs in several areas: Phonics, spanish, reading, math, music, active adventures, science and cooking.  Each program is an additional monthly fee.  But basically the kids get a half hour in their day with 3:1 teacher ratio.  So if I were to choose the phonics program, a teach would come in and work with just phonics for about a half hour each day that he’s there.  The preschool teacher there said she put her daughter in the phonics enrichment program and she loved it.  I love that they have the option to really focus on their interests.  As they get older, the enrichment classes are a little longer (up to an hour).

Con’s:
-space was really small…i think it was converted from a big house…so you had to walk through other classrooms to get to his classroom or to go outside
-outdoor play area was also really small…no room to really run around.
-it’s located kind of on the border of the suburbs and west philly….I’m not sure if I’m entirely comfortable with the location.
-teeny tiny parking lot and no street parking.  I am not good with teeny tiny parking lots…I get anxiety attacks when I have to K-turn.
-It’s expensive compared to the others…but actually, I’m sure if I calculate it out hourly, it might not be THAT much more since it’s basically twice as long as the other half day programs.

Luckily, there’s another location not too far from us further into the burbs.  It’s part of a small college and I’ve seen their outdoor gym driving by and it’s pretty nice and on a big, fenced in field.  I’m hoping their facilities will be better.  The programs are the same across all the preschool locations.

Today, we went to visit 3 preschools….with both kids in tow.  I probably won’t try that again.  1 was a church run program, 1 was a montessori school and 1 was a brand name daycare/preschool that we have in PA.  I had a list of questions to ask each program regarding their schedule, educational curriculum, disciplining tactics, how much parental involvement is required (apparently a lot of preschools require the parent to volunteer in some way).

The church run program.
Pro’s: The people were very kind and church-y hahaha.  We spoke briefly with the directors and then went to visit the classroom he would be in.  I read somewhere that a sign of a good classroom setting is if the kids barely notice that you’re there.  It means that they’re engaged in class/teachers, etc.  When we stepped in, the kids in there barely gave us a glance.  I saw my friend’s kid there and she didn’t even notice us. Good sign. 
-The student teacher ratio was pretty good 6:1. 12 students max per class.  The kids were doing crafts/free play when we got there. 
-This is the program that had a young 3′s class.
-They had an indoor and outdoor play area and the classroom seemed full of activites and toys. 
-The teachers were nice…came over right away to see if they could answer any questions. 
-Tyler had wandered off to play with the train set (we were shocked that he would leave our side since he’s so shy).  Then they had clean up time and Tyler helped them clean up.  What the..? My child? King of Destruction helping to clean up?  Overall, he seemed very comfortable there.
-Discipline via time outs (not really a pro or con…I’m indifferent regarding time outs. I agree that sometimes it’s necessary just to remove them for a few minutes.  I’m not entirely convinced if it works for certain kids (like tyler), but I don’t mind if they try it.
-Price is REALLY nice.

Cons: They want a good amount of participation from the parents.  In general, I don’t mind…but with my work schedule, I don’t know if I’ll have time to go out and buy the stuff necessary or take part in planning meetings, etc.  Snacks are provided by the parents for the ENTIRE class….they take turns providing snacks for the week.  So if you’re in the 5 day class, you would have to provide snacks for the whole class for the whole week every few months.  Again, I wouldn’t mind except I just don’t know if I’ll have time to do think of snacks (the allergy list posted was almost a page long!).  They also want at least once monthly participation in planning meeting, which again, I don’t know if I’ll have time to attend. 

The program also didn’t seem to have too much in terms of “academics” in their curriculum.  I think during circle time, they would read 1 book, talk about the weather and what day of the week it was.  I spoke to another mom who said she didnt’ care if her kid didn’t learn anything educational…she just wanted him to learn how to play nicely with other kids.  Maybe it’s the Tiger Mom in me, but I don’t feel like paying thousands and thousands of dollars for Tyler to only learn how to play with other kids.  This seemed to be mostly playbased preschool, which is fine if that’s what you want.

Must be potty trained.  We plan to have him potty trained by the fall anyway, but just in case he’s as stubborn about potty training as he was sleep training, this might be an issue.

The Montessori School:
Pro’s: I love the Montessori teaching method.  It’s pretty close to how I teach Tyler stuff at home (by coincidence…I didn’t go and study the montessori teaching method or anything) so I think it would be really good reinforcement to learn things the same way at school.  The guy running is was really nice and took us into the classroom to show us their teaching materials and what the kids would take away from it.  There were very little toys in this classroom…I think it’s part of the montessori philosophy.
-They emphasized literacy and he said most kids leave preschool reading well. 
-They also had a good teacher student ratio 5-6:1. Small classes.
-Teachers get twice yearly CPR training (PA state laws require every 2 years, but the guy running it wasn’t comfortable with that…he felt it was too long in between certifications), are randomly tested for drugs/alcohol, have extensive background checks done one them.
-All teachers are given a cell phone which they much carry on them at all times in case of emergencies.  Every little injury gets written up as incident reports, which are given to the parents.
-Flexible schedules…he said whatever days and time we want is fine.  NO CONTRACT!  It goes on a month to month basis…we can leave at any time if we’re unhappy with the place.
-They don’t look at the kids age to put them in classes.  When they first start off, they do…and for the most part, the kids are the same age.  But if the kid is more advanced, they don’t have any qualms about asking if we would want to bump him up to the next class up (but he won’t bump them up more than 1 year).  Since Tyler is an in between age, he said we could go with either the toddler class (2-3) or the preschool class (3-4), but he did recommend the preschool class since Tyler would be learning from the kids older than him.
-Will NOT need to be potty trained…he said it’s part of the teaching
-They will provide snacks
-They don’t do time outs.  The kids are taken aside and explained to about what they did wrong and how it hurt the other person.  It sort of is a time out in that the kids are removed from the rest of the crowd, but they don’t have the kid sit in the corner for x amount of minutes.  They also frown upon yelling at the kids.

Cons: This school just opened last year, so it’s new.  But, they do have a sister school in the next town over which has been open for 30 years and is run by the same guy.  They branched out to our area last year.
-The classrooms are small and there is no indoor gym area (although it is housed in a big church, so I wonder if they could use the church gym/cafeteria to run around in.  I forgot to ask).
-It’s slightly more expensive than the church run programs because it is a private program (it’s only housed in a church, not run by the church).

Unfortunately, we arrived during lunch time, so we didn’t get to see the classroom in action.

Brand name daycare/preschool: This is one of those places that runs from infants up to Kindergarten.
Pro’s: big, sunny rooms, lots of play things.

Con’s: This place looked like a mess when we went to visit.  It’s a 10:1 teacher student ratio.  The classrooms are set up weird.  it’s like one long corridor with partial walls dividing the classes and a main common hallway running behind all the classrooms, so you can hear the classroom next to you.  Kids were everywhere.
-The teachers didn’t seem too engaged in the students and one male teacher was just hollering at all his kids.  He didn’t look happy at all.
-The owner didn’t have copy of their teaching philosophy (which she kept talking about) or curriculum.  She gave me her personal copy (no one else asks for this?)
-Online, it said that the place had an early literacy program in place…but I didn’t see any signs of that.
-There were cots everywhere on the floor.
-Expensive

So far, the Montessori program is the winner.  This one is more affordable than the other Montessori programs in the area…maybe because it’s new?  I wished the classrooms were bigger/sunnier (it’s in the basement level of the church)…but I guess it’s okay that it’s not.  The kids seemed to be well behaved…walked in a line, not running around everywhere.  I really liked their educational curriculum.  We’re going to start out with 2-3 half days a week and then go from there.  But once we start full time preschool, it’s going to be pretty pricey.  Sigh.  Was preschool always this expensive?!

We have to see 2 more on Monday, but Lenny liked it so much, he wants to cancel the other 2.  (of those two, 1 is a church program and the other is another brand name, private daycare/preschool).  We can’t afford the other montessori programs…those are almost 20K a year.

I’m in the process of searching for a preschool for T.  First of all, the costs of some of the preschools are ridiculous.  Seriously? 20K per year for preschool?  I don’t understand what they could possibly teach that would warrant 20K a year.  Those are typically the “brand name” preschools – the Montessori’s, Goddards, the elite private schools, etc.  I am basically limited to the charity case preschools – the ones run by churches, where the tuition is lower because the church eats some of the cost as part of their community service. (Not to say that those are lesser in quality…some of my top choices regardless of price are the church preschools).

Here’s my dilemna. The cutoff for preschool is 3 years old by some time in September.  Tyler has an early Oct birthday so he would be 1 month shy.  Most preschools, if they have space will let him in because he’s so close and an extra person is ka-ching ka-ching for them.  The alternative would be for him to go to the toddler playgroup class which is age 2-3 (meaning they are 2 years old in the fall).

I think “academically” he would be fine in the 3yo class.  He may be a little behind in his speech, especially compared to the girls (he speaks in short sentences, but his pronounciation is still off on most words).  Maturity wise, he might fit in better in the 2-3 toddler class…but who knows, he may be fine being the youngest in the 3 yo class.  I feel like the toddler class might be a little “young” for him and I do want a little bit more of an academic setting instead of a playgroup setting.

Most of the top contenders are minutes away…I could walk it on a nice day.  There is one that’s a little farther (10 minute drive) that as a young 3′s class.  So everyone in that class will be turning 3 anywhere from Sept til December.  And that class progresses through preschool together, so they wouldn’t be put into another 3 yo class when they do turn 3.  I like that idea a lot.  I’m not positive, though, if I want to send Tyler there all the way through pre-K….and I don’t want to do a lot of switching preschools since it takes him so long to adjust to a new place.

Right now we plan on just sending him for half days, a few times a week.  We’re going to go ahead and send him on the days I am off even though it would mean that we would have to pay for a sitter when I work AND pay for preschool when I’m off.  I just feel like I (or Lenny) want to be the one to take him and pick him up when he first starts out.  Hopefully, he’ll be okay and the year after, we can do full time preschool.  By then, keira will be 2 and we were planning maybe to send them both somewhere instead of having a sitter come to us.  But then, we would prefer to find a place that offered full day classes for toddlers AND preschool (not all of them do…some are strictly preschool).

Sigh…who knew this would be so complicated.  I’m pretty much leaning to try to get him into a 3 year old class…but I’m always second guessing this…would he do better in a 2-3 year old toddler class?  Or would he be bored there?

Should I put him in the young 3′s program, but then potentially have to send him and Keira to 2 different places?  Or start him in the young 3′s and the next year, move him and keira somewhere else together?

I wish our Montessori school was more affordable.  I think that’s such a great program for him…it fits him so well.  Hopefully, some of these church ones are Montessori based.  I have yet to visit any of these places, so hopefully the visit will help us make our decision.  I did ask around for opinions, so that helped a little.

I’m sure we’ve all read the excerpt from Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”  I was just curious to see what kind of feedback some of the asian mama’s got from other (particularly non-asian) people.  I wonder if this will influence how asian parents are viewed.  I feel like I’m already getting judged, or at least being watched closely, as a result of this article.

I live in a mostly caucasian neighborhood.  All my neighborhood friends here are white and are absolutely appalled at her parenting style.  At play group today, they brought up the article and of course I was asked about how I was raised.  I think my upbringing was pretty similar to what the article described…and as soon as I said that, they asked if I would do that to my kids.  And there starts the generalizations that all asian parents may possibly be like that.  I mean, they didn’t ask each other if they would be a Tiger Mom…only I,the asian girl, was asked.  I know they weren’t intentionally trying to be rude…they were just curious.  They have seen me interact with my kids for that past 2 years.  Long enough for them know that with my Attachment Parenting influenced parenting style, I am probably be the Anti-Tiger Mom.  Some of them are probably more Tiger Mom-ish than me yet, they still wondered.

Tyler
I can’t believe my little baby is now a 2 year old.  It went by SO fast.  It’s getting harder to remember what new things he does on a monthly basis.  It feels like such a blur these days.  We had a great 2 year celebration.  Our families came up last weekend to go apple picking at Linvilla Orchards near our house.  We did that last year too…but he had so much more fun this year just running around and hitting things with sticks. 

His birthday pie straight from the orchards.

Yesterday, PB and I took him to Adventure Aquarium in Camden, which he loved.

He’s speaking more in phrases these days.  Unfortunately, all the phrases either start with, “more ___” or end with “___now.”  His longest sentence to date has been, “mama, water on now.”  No one else but us understands him.  I always think that his speech is somewhat understandable.  But when we had the family over for his birthday, we decided to show them that he knew the names of 10 Thomas trains.  We heard 10 distinct names…they heard 1 name repeated 10 times.

He loves to count things…his trains, his blocks, etc.  He can only count to 10 and sometimes he’ll leave numbers out, but it’s so cute because he shouts them out so loud.  My favorite number is, “vre-NEN” (seven)…it took us a while to figure that one out.  Only after he started putting it in sequence did we figure out what he was saying.  He can also count to 3 in mandarin and canto…and can repeat after us up to 10.

He is starting to get better with following directions.  He’ll leave stuff alone and put stuff back when we ask him to.  Most of the time.

He sucks at eating now.  He was picky before…but now he’s just flat out defiant when it comes to eating.  Somehow, he is still gaining weight and I think his percentile actually went up to around 30 (from around 17th).  The pedi told us at the last visit just to offer him food and leave him alone if he doesn’t want to eat.  Don’t offer it to him again an hour later…just wait until the next meal…and don’t keep giving him snacks.  It’s SOOO hard to do this.  I keep thinking that he’s so hungry, but he’s just holding out to show his independence.  So for a while we’ve been trying to distract him with books/tv so that we could slip in a piece of food.  Now that doesn’t work either…he just keeps his mouth clamped shut the entire time he’s in the high chair.  He won’t even eat his favorites.  I think he just doesn’t want to be confined in that chair.  If he’s out, running around or in the car, he’ll eat like a champ.  Once he’s in the chair…he doesn’t eat.  Sometimes I just give up and let him run around while I feed him…but I don’t want that to become a habit.  I tried letting him sit in the grown up dining room chairs instead of the high chair, but then he kept climbing onto the dining room table.  I think I’m going to try what the pedi suggested and stick to it.  He will, without question, gulp down his milk, so we add yogurt and stuff to it so he’s getting something at least.

He can finish a 12 piece jigsaw puzzle by himself.  He has 4 of them.  The first one he knows really well and the other 3 he has to think about (since they’re newer).

He is starting to identify colors after I got him the fish color puzzle.  He walked up to me yesterday, pointed at my shirt and said, “pink” and then pointed to his pants and said, “brown” (which they were).

He has discovered his yelling voice.  He especially loves to hear it in small enclosed areas where he can hear the echoes of his screams.  The small vestibules when you first walk into stores and supermarkets are his favorite places to let his voice be heard. Yes, I have become THAT mom.

He also figured out that things sound different when he sticks his fingers in his ears.  So he’ll yell, stick his fingers in his ear, then yell again.  Same with eating…he likes that chewing noise that’s magnified 100 times by sticking fingers in his ears.

He is still super sweet to Keira.  This morning, I ran upstairs to use the bathroom and Keira started fussing.  I had her in her infant rocker and she had pooped.  When I came back down, I found Tyler standing next to the rocker, holding her hand!  I ran to get the camera, but when he saw it, he let go and ran to get the camera.  He always ruins those moments!  He asks for her every morning when I get him out of the crib. 

One day, I found him piling all his stuffed animals on top of her.  He LOVES his stuffed animals and he never wants to give them up.

Keira
Keira is my big girl.  At just shy of 3 months, she weighs in at 15.5 pounds and around 25 inches (96th %ile for both).  She’s in 3-6 month clothes and is actually outgrowing some of them already.

She doesn’t really cry much anymore and she sleeps so well at night.  She goes about 11, sometimes 12 hours straight which is AMAZING for me.  She pretty much goes down and gets up with Tyler.  She still doesn’t nap much during the day, but she’s okay just hanging out.

Her hair is growing in wavy!  It’s not that long yet, but her hair definitely has a bend to it.  I do have wavy/curly hair on my side of the family (my sister, dad and some of my paternal cousins) so it’s not so far fetched for her to have wavy hair.

She can lift her head up 90 degrees during tummy time (which she hates).  She can momentarily hold herself up in a sitting position.  No signs of rolling yet…I’m not expecting that anytime soon with her size!  I would prefer that she is not advanced in any form of movement.  The longer she’s sedentary, the better (within reason of course)!

She is much more aware of the world now…I can see her staring at things and people.  She can grasp objects like rings and small toys now.  I can’t even use my nursing cover anymore since she grabs that and flings it around.

She smiles when she sees me in the morning and coos when I say hi.  She seems like a serious baby though since you really have to work for those smiles. 

She is starting to drool a LOT.  Ugh.  I’m dreading having to put on bibs.  She also found her hands and sucks her thumb when her paci falls out.