18 months

I was too lazy to post when Aelig turned 17 months that's why I'm combining these two months developments / achievements.

According to our babysitter, 18th month is a milestone for kids, Aelig is now considered a little girl, she is no longer a baby.

Language development:

This is how she looks like when she says "NO"

She could now pronounce several words that are understandable:

In French: Chat (cat), kaka (poo poo), papa, maman, NON, doudou (toy), merci (thank you), la tête (head), main (hand), dodo (sleep), papounet (she pronounces papoutête)
In Mandarin: Mama, cat, dog, shoes, bao bao (hold), hot, thank you
In English: Bye bye, baby
In Malaysian Chinese baby language: nen nen (milk), mam mam (eat)

She is a chatty box but most of the time still converse in baby language. She would run towards me pointing at stuffs and babbling with an emergency tone. Sometimes it was because her milk leaked on the pillow, her toy was under the sofa, she wanted a cookie on the counter-top, she wanted to play with the computer...


Messing up with papa's computer. You go GIRL!

In terms of comprehension, she could understand some simple instructions:
Bring your shoes here
Put the dirty cloth in the laundry bin
Drink water
Give this to papa
Let's go to sleep
Let's go take a shower
Say bye bye


She loves looking at books and pointing at pictures. Since I have only one Mandarin book, I started to show her Mandarin nursery rhythms in Youtube. Hubby taught her to press the Space key to pause so sometimes she plays with it. Anyway, the first song she sang was in French, it hit me hard that her first mother tongue is going to be French instead of Mandarin as she spends more time with the babysitter and I'm the only one speaking Mandarin to her.

An animal lover

We brought her to the zoo and she showed interest in most of he animals. The sheep came towards her as she has a brochure on her hand.


Ended up she was being chased by a bunch of sheep who wanted to eat the brochure, she got so annoyed that she screamed and asked hubby for rescue.


The babysitter has a cat so she is familiar with cat. Whenever she sees one she would follow and try to touch it. She has no sense of danger so I have to always keep an eye on her.

Achievements:

Finally gained enough weight to have the car seat set facing the same direction as other adult passengers.


Manage to drink water from a glass (we still prefer her to drink from a plastic cup)


Know how to use her legs to move the little car


Blow her stuffy nose


First step towards becoming cordon bleu (world class chef)? I do not dream high, just hope she could be a little helper in the kitchen (instead of messing around).


Parenting milestones:
1. Sleeping pattern
I finally admitted that my method to put her to sleep was not working. I decided to outsource the task to hubby. He was firmed and after a week, her bad behavior was corrected. Sometimes I put her to bed and was amazed at how well she cooperates. She plays and talks to her toys then dozes off. Sometimes she cries and hubby goes to reassure her, sometimes we let her stay a bit longer with us, but we no longer take as much time as before. As for me, I'm no longer the mother who picks her up at her first cry.

2. Discipline
Hubby disciplines her most of the time, telling her to not drop food on the floor else she will have to stay in her room. His methods work fine, but I could not do it. No matter how annoying she is, I have hard time yelling or letting her cry.

A big thank you to hubby who manage to work things out when I'm vulnerable.