Toddler Talk and Songs

Before I became a mom, there would be often times when I spoke to a young toddler and didn't understand what he/she was saying; I would look to the parents for a translation and was always amazed at how they knew exactly what their child was saying. Now that I have my own, I totally get it!

Some classic examples:
Kayla = Teeya
Eva = Eba or Ebup or E-up
Kim = Tim
Ashley = Ashie
grandma = sanma
excuse me = sushi
see you tomorrow = see you moro
broccoli = brokki
Thomas = Prize
cookies = choochies
water = wata
Yo Gabba Gabba = Da Da Ba
silly band = seely ban
hair tie = seely ban
three = bee

Despite the Christmas season being over, baby K will once in a while launch into her own rendition of "Jingle Bells" or "Oh Christmas Tree." Needless to say, it'd sound foreign to any outsider hearing her sing, but to us, it is music to the ears. A few other favorites of baby K:

• Jesus Loves Me: I am still amazed that baby K knows this song. She's only heard it a handful of times at Calvary Chapel Old Bridge when we're there on Sundays and I brought her over to sing with the 3-5 year olds. She doesn't know all the lyrics yet, but would repeat the chorus over and over again.
• Farmer In The Soup: Baby K has a book titled "Farmer In The Soup" that she likes. M and I have changed the words from the song "Farmer In The Dell" to "Farmer In The Soup."
• London Bridge Is Falling Down: Baby K must've learned this at daycare since we never sang it at home, but instead of singing "my fair lady" in the last line, baby K would sing something that sounds like "I love you." That's the version we've adopted at home now.
• BINGO: I think baby K's class was learning colors one day and the teachers used the melody from BINGO to teach the kids. As a result, baby K only knows the chorus as G-R-E-E-N, not B-I-N-G-O. That's all she remembers from the song so she would sing G-R-E-E-N over and over again. Hey, at the age of 2, my little girl can spell the color green; who am I to complain?

Slow Progress

It has been over two weeks since my last post, and I am disappointed to say that little progress has been made in the potty training front. Baby K has been willing to sit in the toilet at daycare when it's time to change her diaper, but other than the one-off earlier this month, she hasn't actually peed in the toilet. She did pee in her potty chair today, but that was the first time in over two weeks. Yesterday she refused to put on a diaper, so I allowed her to wear only underwear under her pants. I would ask her every five minutes if she had to go (to the point where even I got annoyed at hearing me ask, "do you have to pee pee?"). The answer was "no" every time. The second I walked away, she decided to go. Eghh... how did I know that was going to happen? Fortunately it was only pee we had to deal with, but still a mess to clean up.

I told myself I wasn't going to force the issue... that I would let baby K wean off of diapers when she's ready (I just wish she'd be ready sooner rather than later). Baby K understands the concept; I just don't think she's comfortable going in the potty chair yet. We are down to the last box of diapers and I was hoping we wouldn't have to restock, but it doesn't look very promising at this point.

Potty Training Progress

Tuesday morning marked a great milestone for baby K: she peed in her potty chair (at her own free will) for the first time! She had just woken up and was playing in her crib. For the past few weeks now, I've been asking her every morning if she wants to go pee pee, and the answer is always no. To my surprise, she said yes that morning, so I brought her into the bathroom and plopped her down on her Dora toilet seat. She sat for a while, then decided to get up and sit on her potty chair instead. She switched back and forth a few more times. After about 20 minutes (God has been teaching me much about patience through my little girl), she finally peed in the potty chair. I was practically shouting for joy at the top of my lungs, and she just acted like it was no big deal, giving me a look as if thinking, "mommy, you're weird." I shared the news with baby K's teacher when I dropped her off at daycare, and to my delight, she peed using the toilet later that morning while there. Minor progress was made on Wednesday and Thursday as she became more and more willing to sit on the throne. This morning marked another success - baby K peed using the toilet at home (a step up from her potty chair). I am so proud of my little girl! Hopefully this is the beginning to the end of diapers!

H Mart

This morning, we made a trip to H Mart, a Korean chain supermarket, that recently opened up in Edison. I was pleasantly surprised with the shopping experience. Everything was nicely organized (though I guess that's to be expected since the place is new), there were free tastings throughout the store, it wasn't too crowded (absolutely no comparison to the one we used to frequent in Flushing), the prices were pretty reasonable for most of their products, and best of all, baby K had a blast. She sat in the shopping cart at the beginning of the trip, but after the first five minutes, demanded to be let down. There was a brief moment of defiance when she started running around the supermarket on her own, but we got her to calm down and had her push the shopping cart with M. The best part came when we were checking out. There was Korean music playing over the loudspeaker and baby K started dancing... right there in the middle of the store, not caring who was around her. It was the funniest thing; I wish I could have captured it on video. Even as we made our way towards the food court, baby K continued to jump while walking. Fortunately, she got all the excitement out of her system by the time we finished eating and didn't give us any problems about leaving. Next time we suffer from cabin fever, I'll know where to go. In the meantime, I'll have to solicit some Korean music from M's niece (who's a big fan).

Last Week Of December

Between being sick, Christmas, and the unexpected snow day yesterday, today is the first day in over a week that baby K's been back at daycare. I think she's gotten so accustomed to being at home that she felt out of sorts being back in her class. When I left her this morning, she was just standing there, puzzled, looking around as if wondering, "What am I doing here? Why aren't I at home playing with all the new toys I got for Christmas?" I was so tempted to pull her into my arms and drag her out the door with me... but alas, common sense got the better of me and I left... sans my little girl.

The month of December just flew by. Honestly, I don't know where the time went. One minute I was eating leftovers from Thanksgiving, and the next, I find myself getting ready for the new year! All the in-betweens of Christmas shopping, decorating the tree, putting the lights outside, wrapping the gifts, sending out the cards, baking/cooking for the holidays, getting together with family, etc is now nothing more than a faint distant memory. Christmas was only three days ago, so this is a true sign that my old age is showing. Forget about a reflection on the past year when I can barely remember what I did last week! In any event, here's to hoping that 2011 will be a better year than last! Wishing you all a happy, healthy, joyful, peaceful, and safe 2011!

Bibimbap

As much as I crave it, I am not referring to the Korean rice dish here. "Jingle Bells" has become baby K's favorite song of the week, but instead of saying "jingle bells," what comes out sounds more like "bibimbap." I found a free (but lame Karaoke) version of the song on Amazon.com and made the mistake of downloading it to my iPod mini. Now every day when she comes home, baby K automatically goes for the device, puts it on the Bose speakers, and requests for "bibimbap." Fortunately, she doesn't know how to scroll through the songs to select her favorite ones yet (but give her some time, and I'm sure she will master that as well).

Now if only I can figure out what "Yak Yak You" is...

Loving These Moments

Yesterday's Moment Of The Day: hearing baby K sing to Michael W. Smith on the car ride home.

Today's Moment Of The Day: This is a tough one... I'm torn between watching baby K use chopsticks for the first time during dinner tonight (she can't even hold a pen properly but she was able to feed herself using two wooden sticks) and seeing her dance/sing along to the Newsboys. I don't think she's ever even heard the Newsboys... it was just randomly playing on my iPod mini and baby K goes rushing down the stairs once the song came on.

A true sign that my little girl is growing up: she no longer calls me "MA-EEEE." I've graduated to full-blown MOMMY these days (although M is still known as DA-EEEE). Baby K is also testing her limits more, as evidenced by the numerous tantrums she threw this past weekend. Funny enough, she always yells "MOMMY" when she's crying, regardless of whether or not I'm the one not giving her what she wants.

Another (quite drastic) change: baby K was not interested in eating meat this weekend. I am still trying to recover from the shock. Saturday night we had chicken and string beans for dinner. All she ate were string beans and some rice. Then today, we went to Pollo Tropical for lunch. After taking two bites of chicken from M, she refused to eat any more and stuffed herself with two sides of corn all by herself (we even had to order an extra side for her). For dinner tonight, we had pork dumplings and broccoli. She would not eat the pork and only had broccoli and a little bit of rice. I don't know what to think of this. Granted, string beans and broccoli are baby K's favorite vegetables, but she's always been such a carnivore (it's constantly a struggle to get her to eat vegetables) that this recent eating pattern has left me dumbfounded. Tomorrow night's dinner menu: chicken and brussel sprouts. Let's see if she keeps it up.

Telemarketers

I do not like telemarketers (with much emphasis on the "do not like" part). Placing our name and number on those "DO NOT CALL" lists have had little effect, as we still constantly get calls from people conducting surveys, asking for donations, or trying to sell us something. It doesn't matter when I pick up the phone and request for our number to be removed from their calling list; the calls still come! The worst is before an election, when all the candidates running for office in our area cold-call every household to introduce themselves, leaving an annoying 5-minute long voice-mail on why we should vote for them on election day (darn our town for distributing our phone number!). Thank goodness for caller ID; we've been able to ignore many of those calls. However, telemarketers seem to have become more relentless. Upon returning home, we'd check our missed call log and see that the March of Dimes has called three times in the past five hours, or that Sears has called twice already (for three days in a row). Plus, it's annoying to have the phone ringing off the hook when we're about to sit down for dinner (or while we are eating dinner).

Recently, I've started to answer the phone, put it on speaker, and let baby K do all the talking. She's used to talking to my parents on the phone, so thinking it was them, she'd say "gong gong" (for grandpa) and "por por" (for grandma). The person on the other line would be like, "Hello? Hello? This is so-and-so calling. I'm looking for Mr. Y." Baby K would babble some more gibberish with the telemarketer repeating, "Hello? Hello?" When baby K realizes it's not her grandparents on the other line, she'd lose interest and stop talking, at which point I would hang up the phone. It seems to have worked twice so far, since our missed call log did not reveal any additional calls from the two offenders we've tried this on. It gave me a good laugh the first time I did this, but is this too mean? What kind of message am I sending to my 2-year old daughter, who acts like a sponge and absorbs everything we do and say? Any thoughts?