Painting

Painting on a rainy Saturday afternoon =)

Multilingual

While playing with an app on his iPad, Swe-cha looks at me and says "Turn off lights".

next, he looks at the cow on his iPad and says, "晚安, 大牛"  (wan an da niu = good night big 
cow).

He touches the light switch on the iPad app to turn off the lights.

He closes the window, goes on to another screen and then says "Gute Nacht".

Backseat driver

On our way home from daycare this afternoon, Swe-cha started yelling "stop" and "go" whenever the light changes. Thankfully, his stop / go cues match the lights :)

... and just like that, I now have a backseat driver.

Milestones

Favorite songs to sing:
- Misty Island Rescue theme song
- Thomas and Friends theme song

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Anecdote:
This evening, Swe-cha comes to me with torn pieces of his Thomas & Friends checklist (the insert that comes with the trains which depicts all the other characters that you can buy) and says "is broke".

Family

It used to be that when you say "FAMILY" out loud, Swe-cha would rush over to us and hug us. Family meant Mommy, Daddy and Swe-cha mixed in with a lot of hugs and kisses.

These days, Mommy and Daddy have been demoted and replaced with two other family members.

Family raw,... and then he kisses them.

Granted, they're super stars.

But hey, aren't Mommy and Daddy supposed to be super stars in your eyes too, Swe-cha ?

Great Job

We were at A & A's birthday party yesterday and were out in the patio playing with sidewalk chalk when I discovered that Swe-cha not only knows his classmate's names but he can spell them too.

We started off by writing his name... then later, he made me write J, A, D then he'd point and say, "J, A, D, JAD!" He spelled Brendan, Omar and later, YRAM (Mary) - not sure why Mary's name is spelled backwards but he is very consistent in this.

Today, he still seemed obsessed with spelling and writing down names but he kept saying "Be nice please" after saying Brendan's name. I snickered to hubby that the teachers must say that a lot to Brendan.

Not really expecting a response, I then turned to Swe-cha and asked him, "how about you ? What does the teacher say about Swe-cha ?". Without batting an eyelash, he says "great job! good job!".

=)

Huli ka!

We've been locking our bathrooms because Swe-cha keeps playing with water and flushing all kids of stuff (which reminds me, have to call a plumber because one toilet is still clogged with who-knows-what!).

 Recently, we've been catching him IN the bathroom and hubby and I keep blaming each other for leaving the door unlocked - we both denied it, of course.

 Last week, I caught the culprit opening the door with a coin. Today, I caught the sneaky guy again on camera and this time, he was using a hard plastic card (like a credit card) instead.

Pee in the Potty

Today, we celebrate another first - the first time that Swe-cha went to the bathroom all by himself to pee.

Along with this comes the realization that we have to work on his aim =)

Potty Training - Week 2

We mark Swe-cha's 2nd week of potty training this week and we are so happy. This evening, he called my attention when he wanted to pee =)

Potty Training - Day 3

It's day 3 for potty training and I see some progress.

The worst part of day 1 was getting probably the 15 minute-timer. We felt like we were living in the bathroom and towards the end of the day, Swe-cha was obviously getting tired of going to the bathroom and there were times when we'd have to carry him to the bathroom.

Day 2 was better in the sense that the moment Swe-cha hears the kitchen timer, I call out "bathroom" and he immediately runs to the bathroom. In terms of "accidents", it was bad,... I lost count of how many accidents we've had to wipe up last night.

Today is day 3 and while we still have a ways to go yet, I do see some progress. We have two #2 accidents tonight but no peepee accidents so far (knock on wood). We also decided to set our timer to 1 hour intervals. We've made 3 successful peepees and I am so happy.

Day 1 Thoughts on Potty Training

As hubby and I frantically scramble around to clean up pee and poop, I had a realization.

 So we're potty training, right ? Swe-cha had a good start - not a single accident the whole day! - and we continued the good work when we got home. After dinner was when it all started to go haywire. We're on a 15 minute timer and keep missing by minutes, he would void a minute or two before our timer goes off, and as I catch my breath after scrubbing the toilet while hubby took care of the soiled clothing, inspiration came. THIS IS WHY KIDS HAVE AN EARLY BEDTIME!

The earlier they sleep, the less potential for accidents. Imagine, if Swe-cha had been in bed by 8:30 ? I wouldn't be here blogging about accidents - all 3 of them, one pee and two #2s.

Potty Training - Day 1

Today is the BIG day. We started potty training.

Kinda late, I know.

But if you think about it, we've kinda-sorta been potty training a while since we have been bringing Swe-cha to the toilet to pee every now and then and he has no problems going in the toilet. We just weren't doing this 100% till now. Now, we are coordinating this with his school so you could say that *this* is a team effort.

We've only been home half an hour and I am so nervous because I realize that this house is so not potty-training-friendly. We have a new sofa and loveseat, hardwood floors and we no longer have the plastic wraps on our dining seat upholstery.

I dropped by the home improvement store to pick up one of these - a toilet seat that has an integrated child-sized seat.

How cool is that ? I didn't even realize that there were contraptions like these until I saw this at Swe-cha's Ninang's house. No unsightly potty seats hanging beside the toilet bowl.

Installation was a breeze. I did get over the ewww factor of taking off the old seat by using disposable latex gloves.

Now, if only I can get Swe-cha to stop flushing every so often. We've only sat on the toilet thrice and he probably flushed more than 10x already. Boy, I'm not looking forward to this quarter's water bill.

Superbowl XLVIII

Football

Valentine's Day 2014 Crafts

Cereal Box Mailbox (daycare)

Heart Envelope

Card with handprint

Heart Wreath

Winter 2013-2014 Crafts

Striped Candy Cane

Christmas Wreath

Marshmallow Snoflakes

Paper Cutout Penguin

Scribbles

Gingerbread House

Birthday cake

This evening, Swe-cha pulls me to the refrigerator and points to it.

I ask, what do you want ?

He says, "refrigerator open" and makes the sign for refrigerator.

So I open the refrigerator and he asks "popo, please", indicating that he wanted to be carried.

I carry him and he inspects the contents of our refrigerator. After a few minutes, I asked Swe-cha what he was looking for... "Birthday cake", he answers.

=)

Naghanap ng cake ang bata...

Current Favorites

Favorite Song:
- The Rainbow Song (Barney)
- 5 Little Ducks

Favorite Rhyme:
- 5 Little Monkeys

ABC

I just heard Swe-cha sing the alphabet song, complete from A to Z, while accompanying himself with a piano app on the iPad.