Ethan at 31 months

Scrap Credits
Spontaneous Delight kit from Carrie Stephens Designs
Basic chipboard alphas from Dani Mogstad

I’m gonna use the dependable adage here and say “Better late than never”. GASP! I am close to three weeks late in posting a monthly report on Ethan’s developmental milestones.  Been a really busy month for all of us, and you’ll soon know why, but I tell myself that I still need to do this update. 🙂

Weight

12 kilos, according to the weighing scale at home.

Height

Did not measure recently, but he does seem to have S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-D.

Teeth

18 in total, and very sharp too, I might add.  According to his mood, Ethan will sometimes brush his teeth, but sometimes he will refuse.  He won’t want to put toothpaste in his mouth though.  My dentist told me that cleaning a toddler’s teeth is important, especially the molars, and she advised me that using a wash cloth wrapped around a finger would be effective enough.  So I have been using the sherpa backing of the cloth wipes I have to clean Ethan’s teeth.  Quite a struggle, sometimes, but it does result in more than satisfactory results 🙂 (and not to mention, often a bruised finger or two).

Developmental Milestones

• Attempting to “read”, I think.  So far, Ethan knows almost all his alphabets (both lowercase and uppercase), but we have noticed that sometimes when he sees a combination of some letters, he will try to pronounce them like what he thinks they would sound like.  For example, when he sees the word “HBO”, he will say “bo”, referring to the last two letters, or he will say “wa” when he sees the letters “WA”.  “Star Movies” is “Star-vees” to him 🙂
• Faster at picking up words he hears.  He will say “phone, phone!” when he wants to play with my cellphone, or he will say “book!” when he wants his book.  When he wants to put toothpaste on his toothbrush, he will say “paste! paste!” and just this morning, after he saw Pete brushing his teeth, Ethan asked me for “brush, brush!”
• Beginning to show preference.  Besides voicing his opinions sometimes by firmly stating “Mai!” (“no” in Hokkien), while kicking and throwing a tantrum, he sometimes requests for who he wants to give him his shower.  There have been several times when I was ready to give him his nightly shower and he adamantly called out, “Daddy!  Daddy!  Daddy!”, and when Pete answered, Ethan pulled his Daddy into the shower stall 😛
• Loves playing “horse” with Daddy.  Ethan will run towards Daddy, pull him to the ground, and saying “horse!”.  Ethan can now expertly climb onto Daddy’s back and well…ride the “horse”.  (Horsy has got impressive sound effects too, I might add).

Other Highlights

We’ve been preparing him to welcome his new sibling in a few months’ time, but in the recent weeks, we’ve noticed that he’s been acting rather “big brotherly” like.  There was a time when he pointed at my tummy and said “baby!”, and nowadays when I ask him to “sayang baby”, he will gently stroke my belly.  Sometimes la.

Food and Feeding

Ironically, he has been requesting for me to feed him instead of him eating on his own.  Could this dependence be caused by the “knowledge” that he will soon be a big brother?