At 20 months, I am having a little bit of a struggle to update Spud’s milestones, simply because the development has not been quite as stark as it used to be when she was younger. It does make me wonder how long before I will actually stop updating her progress on a monthly basis and more of an ad-hoc update. My guess is that it probably will not be too far away!
What else is new this month?
This cheeky monkey, is actually quite pleasant to be with – that is mostly, when she is not cranky, whiny and throwing her little tantrums. She continues to test boundaries, sometimes pushing the limits to the breaking point. She no longer goes just, “No, no, no”; instead, she upgraded her vocab to “No. I don’t want!” or “I want” quite confidently.
She has, of late, been notorious for changing her mind every 3 seconds when asking for what she wants. I do have a strong suspicion that she asks just for the sakes of asking when she really does not know what she wants. She is also this little parrot who repeats after what we say and mimics what we do. Every so often, I see her picking stuff up with her feet (and then stumbled over) because I suspect she sees me doing it! Yikes. We are also hearing more and more of her repeating words with a Filipino accent such as “put it bug”(i.e put it back), “roober-bun”(i.e. rubber band) and “cut” (i.e cat). Quite funny actually – and I can’t help but laugh at how messed-up her accent will be growing up here in Thailand!
She is all about her stuffed toys now, and has recently took on the never-ending, fun challenge of trying to pick all of them up at the same time with her two bare hands; and trying all over again when she drops even 1 of them before she gets to her intended destination.
Her few favourites includes Pete The Penguin, Bear the Bear, Puss The Cat, and Sam the Seal. She still sleeps with Lenny the (Snowy) Leopard and Moe the Monkey, but will always make it a point to ask for Bear if she does not see it.
We have also started her on a part-time playschool curriculum just a couple of weeks ago. The day we enrolled her, the admin staff was quick to label her as a chatterbox as she simply would not stop yakking away. It is of no surprise though, that the moment we left her in the care of the teachers, she wailed her guts out. This has so far happened every single day.
I have heard from a lot of mothers that this-leaving-your-kids-to-school-episode is usually one of the most heart-wrenching sessions any parents would have to go through when they leave a screaming child behind. It makes me wonder if I seriously am an emotional fuck-wit on this because I did not feel sorry or sad for Spud.
I was in fact, really cool about it; even on the verge of nonchalance. Does that make me a bad parent? Somehow, I think that it is something that needs to be done, and she just needs to get over it.
Spud will just has to get used to it.
The same thing she got used to in having to sleep in her own bed without being carried.
The same thing she got used to when she was transitioned from the breast to the bottle.
The same thing she eventually got used to when she was weaned off the bottles to a sippy cup.
Perhaps, if anything at all, Spud probably was the one who “hardened” and “trained” me to handle the situation as it is whenever I am with her. Despite the emotional fuck-
witism on my part (if there is such a word!), I know deep in my heart, that she’ll be able to cope with it and thrive. And like every other kids, she will eventually appreciate the joy of going to school – until she goes off to a proper-proper school for real, that is!
Last we heard from the teachers, Spud seems to be enjoying herself playing with other kids once we are gone!
Spud’s still unpredictable with food. Some days she is ok, some days she will not have anything and I have given up trying to get her to eat if she doesn’t want to. So far, our nanny has been doing an excellent job at feeding her during the weekdays whilst we are at work, (I don’t know why that is!), but at least we can sit back and be comforted on the fact that she eats well when we are not around.
Our little girl looks so grown-up now. She certainly has exerted some sort of independence, makes her own decision as to what shoes she prefers that day, and wanting to practice putting on her own shoes failing which, she will throw her temper tantrums. Not ideal if we are in a hurry to go somewhere; and failing which we just put on her shoes for her anyways and let her wail as we dash out of the door!
At 20 months old, Spud’s really keeping us super busy, and somehow the time we have with her over the weekends is never enough. Well, sometimes.
