A long-due post

Peter has entered that age period when most of the time it is so much joy to be simply around him, watch and listen to him.

He has begun to talk so much recently. First day back school after the holiday, as soon as I went into the classroom, Nicole looked at me and asked me while smiling "what did you do to Peter over the holiday? .... He seemed non-stop, all of a sudden, he can talk in full sentence..."It turned out that day Peter surprised all of his teachers by talking to them, singing with them and so on. One thing Nicole mentioned was Peter called her and said "Nicole, --Mitts---Off" when he needed help to put his mittens back on outside in the playground.

As a matter of fact, It has been so much fun for us too, to find that our boy started to say a lot of words and sentences.

Whenever I sneeze, Peter was always the first one "bless you!" or "mama, bless you!"
If I do what he wants me to do, like giving him some treat, he says "good job, mama!" right away.
Peter loves to say "OK" now. It sounds so cheerful because he uses some rising tone and "Oooo-K!" So, if you want him to help with some simple house chores like throwing away trash, putting plates in the dishwasher, or give up something, or if he falls, instead of leturing, I ask "....., OK?" He would pause for a sec and raises his head and "Ooooo-K!" Most possibly, he will follow the order to help and walk away happily, or in the case of falling, he will give up whining. Like I told Nicole, it is so much better than "No-no", and I hope this "OK" phase will stay. Other phrases he uses frequently are "what's that?" "这个" "那儿".

When we step out of the school building, Peter yells "al--l dark" and then followed by "I-see-moon!"
When the car stops, Peter nowdays always shouts "到了！"before I do it. Now when I open the car door to get him, instead of waiting for me to call his nickname, he yells "小皮球" while giggles.
Then in the morning, he says"bye-bye, 飞机,(often fly above us), bye-bye, geese(often seen in front of our house)"when we leave home.
If he wants to go outside, Peter says "开door"
When he can not find something or someone, he uses "gone" correctly.

Even more exciting, Peter can count to thirteen in English and six in Chinese with little help and he can tell some colors, tell all the kids' names in the class(according to his teachers), sing "If you are happy and you know it" "twinkle, twinkle, little star""ring around the rosie""the wheels on the bus""baa-baa black sheep""小兔子乖乖"(though he sings like小兔子该该) with some help. Finally he seems to have cooled off from "Dora", and his new loving characters are barney, BJ, baby bop and sometimes George the monkey. His favorite books is still changing from "happy" to "spot" series to "brown bears". Saddly, sometimes, he even chooses to read those books that daddy is reading with pretty women on(人体摄影). He calls them "阿姨book". Two things we can easily get Peter to go to bed are "刷牙牙" (tooth brushing) and reading books, he somehow loves those better than anything. Very often, he falls asleep holding his toothbrush in his little fist.

Of course Peter is learning from everyone, most often from his big sis. Yaya, on the other hand, is often very patient and nice, despite occasionally "Peter, do not copy me!"

One thing funny was that the other night when I picked him up, Nicole said bye to us when we left the room, but Peter did not respond right away. In the hallway, when we were walking towards Yaya's class, I held him up upon request. He then murmured "Nicole, bye-bye". Right at that time, Gayle, the assistant director, passed by in kind of a rush. Peter continued his bye like "bye bye, Gayle" The way he was saying Gayle's name so clearly really shocked me, because I never knew he knows her or her name. Of course, later, I told Gayle about that and she is happy too.

It seems I could not write enough about how much fun it is now to be with Peter. We really wish he could stay at this age for ever.