Most people will tell me that Justin is a very good boy, except when he is playful. He can be a sweet little koh koh to Isabelle, and he can also be that little monster that disturbs his sister to the max until she cries. But overall, I think he’s OK and very independent.

He likes reading a lot, and we still have to read to his selection of books. Actually, he can sit by himself, browsing through the pictures and reciting the contents that he’s familiar with already, but he likes us to read out loud to him. He likes books about animals, dinosaurs, transportation, and he is getting interested in recognizing the different countries in the world. He knows where Ipoh, Penang (Malaysia in general), Bangkok (Thailand la…), Japan, Africa, Australia and etc are by pointing to the atlas. He likes to talk about some of the trips we had like seeing the sleeping volcano in Bali, most of the zoo and farm visits, and a few beach vacations we went together. I guess he knows more about general knowledge instead of academic learning these days.

Yesterday, it was his turn to raise the Thailand national flag, and I managed to snap a photo before they sang the national anthem. Hubby and I joked that Justin has never raised our national flag before but already did so for Thailand flag. LOL! I guess my kids might grow up confusing about their nationality, unless we tell them more about Malaysia…

Justin was going to raise the flag at school.

He likes school a lot, and he said he doesn’t want to go back and study in Ipoh anymore. I think it’s due to the learning methods practiced at his current preschool, which is more interesting to young children. We were surprised to see the school teachers dressing up like soldier, singer, nurse, policewoman and etc when they were teaching about occupations, or bringing the children to see the trees and plants in the garden when they were learning about plants, and today, Justin has another excursion to the Bangkok Aquarium to visit the aquatic animals (they supposed to go to Dusit Zoo, but it’s situated near the Parliament House, which is the hot spot of riot these days). I can’t read their weekly theme because it’s in Thai, so I guess they are learning about animals this week. I think he will enjoy this trip and talk about his trip later when we pick him up from school.

 Hubby let Justin join the taekwondo class and he likes it. He “practices” with hubby almost everyday, before dinner, and I’m amused to see the two “boys” acting like kungfu pandas. LOL! Little Isabelle cannot join the class as hubby doesn’t want her to be boyish.

Justin will be 4 years old next month, and we still haven’t thought of how to celebrate his birthday. There will be a cake for him to school and he wants Power Ranger! He is over with Barney now because he said “I grow up already mah, only baby likes Barney.”:)

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Justin is 34 months old today, and I have been think the whole day about what can I update about him besides his weight and height? Unlike babies who you can see significant difference from one month to another, I just can’t see any significant different from one month to another now. Of course, I did update about his progress like counting, writing and riding the bicycle, but the milestone is different now.

But one thing for sure, he is getting more and more independent and I can trust him to get things done by himself. During the weekend, he cooked the agar-agar with my mum’s help. He wanted to do this by himself so we let him try it out. Of course, I was worried about the stove, the fire, the hot pot and etc, but he did well.

 Cooking the agar-agar

 Placing some marshmallows into the tray, he wanted to have them in the agar-agar.

Pouring the hot agar-agar into the trays.

We helped him to placed the trays in the fridge though as my mum didn’t want to take the risk of cleaning up the mess later if he spilled. So, he’s a big boy now huh?

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01102007108.jpg, originally uploaded by shoppingmum and kids.

I like to guide and teach Justin through games and play. He knows how to count, but can’t recognize all the numbers from one to ten correctly. So I’ve been play this set of puzzle with him a few times and he’s beginning to show some improvement. Why so eager to teach numbers? It’s because I would like him to know our car plate numbers and how how to call daddy by himself. But I know he’s still young, and we are taking this slowly. Most importantly, he loves the game.

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I thought he would not be learning about writing so soon but I was wrong. He showed lots of interest in holding the pencil so I bought him this maze book from Kumon last month.

I kept it in his drawer, and one day, he took one the book and ask me to do his work with him. He likes to have some “homework” now which he does after Isabelle’s asleep so that I can pay full attention on him. After some guidance, he is able to do the maze by himself now.

We took video clips of him doing his work too as if it’s something special. LOL! Maybe it’s special to us as parents, so we are very excited about the achievement of his motor skill now. He can recognize some of the letters and numbers, but he hasn’t got to that yet. What’s the hurry? He’s only 34 months.

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Height: 98 cm

Weight: 14 kg

Justin is getting fatter and fatter, even my mum also beh tahan and asked him not to eat too much. All the parents that I met at his school will tell me that he always asks for second portion after he has finished his meal. Double portion at school! What a big eater! But I can’t blame him, both hubby and I are big eaters too, so he got our genes.

He can button and unbutton his shirts and pajamas now. He will undress himself and help himself at the toilet without guidance anymore, so it’s pretty easy for me. Besides, he is very helpful in taking care of Isabelle, cleaning up the mess and toys, keeping me company when I blog, and just being a sweet little boy.

BTW, he is hubby’s favorite pet. Not that hubby doesn’t love Isabelle the same, but they have some father and son bonding that is unique to them. I watch the way they play and read together, it’s really different. Maybe Isabelle is more attached to me while Justin is more to hubby. Fair lah, one pet for each. LOL!

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Justin is going to be 32 months tomorrow! Time really flies….

Height: 95 cm

Weight: 14 kg (Yeap, he is quite heavy.)

A lot of strangers will approach me and ask if he’s from mixed parentage, well if hubby is not around. NO, he is Chinese, but he looks a bit like mixed.

He is trying hard to compose a perfect sentence, like past tense and plural form. But he still has some problems pronouncing words like “sleep”, “five”, “phone” and etc. His teacher said some of his friends teased him, so sometimes he can be really quiet at school. But back at home, he is a chatterbox. I better let him talk as much as possible to work on his pronunciation.

Just now, I noticed that he knows how to hold a pencil, but not too well. At least he knows how to flex his fingers and he is not holding them horizontally anymore. I praised him and he was so happy about it. That’s the thing about kids, the more we praise, the better they will perform.

I just can’t keep track with his development anymore. He seems to be turning into a boy who is more independent than before. If he wants to go for a poo, he will prepare the potty, put the water in by himself, help himself alone in the toilet and then only call for me when he is done. He wanted to wash the potty by himself too. So, I guess my boy is really growing up. Oh ya, I took a photo of him in the toilet, but he was really mad. LOL! So I guess he is aware of his privacy, and I cannot upload the photo.

Today, he told him he loves school. Just days after he complained about school, now he said he likes it. Why? He’s “long time” girlfriend from Kindermusik is joining his school. Her mom told me that Justin wanted to sit with her and help her with her work. Wa lau, my Casanova has finally got a girl. No more rejection. LOL!

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My boy is going to be 3 years old this year. Next January, he will be in a kindergarten, and will start his formal school officially. Frankly, I think time flies too fast. Justin has beginning to show some independence like watching TV by himself, using the toilet, using the chair to get his snack from the higher cabinet, washing his cup and hands, and etc. Ever since he has started preschool, his motor skill and speech development have improved greatly, I feel like my boy is grow so fast sometimes.

But the 2 things about him that remains the same is his affection towards Isabelle. Even if there are fights occasionally, he still adores his mei mei. He complains that mei mei hit or beats him sometimes, and Isabelle will also “tell” me koh koh bullies by signing. But I told Justin, why not to fight with her because she is still a baby. So far so good. After those biting incidents, Justin doesn’t bite mei mei anymore because MIL threatened to remove his teeth! LOL!

The other thing is, Justin cries a lot. He can cry and whine over anything if he is moody. So, if you cannot take his crying, you will be insane! I lose my cool too sometimes, especially when he is crying for hubby who is not around. How am I going to get hubby back??? Furthermore, we are staying with his cousins. When he sees something that they have and he wants it, he will fight for it. So, there will be kids fight and cries almost everyday. Hai yo, I tell you, if you don’t have the patient, you will bang your head against the wall already!

But when we are in our room, Justin is a sweet little boy. He likes reading a lot, and he can read by looking at the pictures now. So, I easily put Isabelle to sleep while Justin reads by himself. He will wait for Isabelle to fall asleep first then only ask for one to one reading session with him. I guess it’s a quality mommy and son time, or daddy and son time to Justin. He will just wait patiently for it.

On top of that, he likes to know more about animals like their gender names, how plants grow, how rainbow forms, where baby comes from, machinery, and etc. I think I am going back to school with my boy.

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I stop measuring his height and weight. Some times, he can be very chubby and fat, but once in a while, he will have running nose and thus slim down drastically. So as long as he is healthy and active, I don’t want to worry to much about his height and weight. But who knows, maybe I siao siao go and measure them tomorrow. LOL!

His speech development is great. Nowadays, he can be curious about anything, and he will ask lots of questions. Yesterday, I had this conversation with him….

Justin: Mommy, I want you to have baby.

Me: Huh??? What Justin?

Justin: I want you to put baby in your tummy. Then take baby out and cut (the ambilical cord)

Me: What??? Justin, you already have a baby, see, mei mei is our baby.

Justin: No, not mei mei, I want another baby.

Me: But do you know how to take care of baby? New baby needs lots of work one.

Justin: *thinking* I want the baby book only.

Hahaha! Luckily, he is too afraid of taking care of another baby. If not, I don’t know how to answer that question. So, we proceeded to reading how baby comes from only. Both Isabelle and him like to see the pictures, and reading about how baby comes from. Needless to say, their favourite part is cutting the umbilical cord!

On top of that, he can watch the whole DVD of animation now, but he still needs company. One of his favourite channel is Animal Planet. Ya, to a lot of us, Animal Planet can be boring, but Justin loves it. Once, when we were watching it with him, the documentary showed some animal mating. I asked hubby to switch the channel but he said it should be ok, it was just general knowledge. So, we didn’t think much about it until we caught Justin playing with his toy animal…..

Now you know why I have to watch TV with the kids! LOL!

He likes reading a lot, and he loves dinosaurs, Thomas Train, Barney and Santa Clause. Sometimes, when Isabelle is napping, I will play some stickers with him. He loves to find the correct stickers and put them in place. He won’t let me help him, so I leave it to him to align them by himself.

As for the numbers and alphabet, I stopped teaching him at home. He knows how to recognize a few of the letters, but as for numbers, he only knows how to count. However, there is no hurry lah, even if some one said he should know how to read number plates already.

But one thing that annoys me the most is he can be very teh with hubby. He knows daddy will spoil him, so he is making full advantage of it. So, what to do? Hubby seems to be enjoying it, no matter how it irritates me.

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Weight: 12.5 kg

Height: 87 cm

He likes to say that “Justin big boy now”, and wants to do whatever daddy is doing. Like he doesn’t want to use the potty some times, he wants to use the toilet like us. He doesn’t want to sit in high chair as he said it’s for baby like mei mei, he wants to sit (or rather kneel) on the adult chairs like us….He’s trying to act like a grown up!

But at times like this, he’ll act like a big baby…

Me: Tomorrow you got to go to school.

Justin: No, Justin no go to school.

Me: Why?

Justin: Justin still small, Justin stay at home.

Me: Oh, I thought you said you are a big boy already?

Justin: No, Justin still small, Justin giant baby.

Me: LOL!

He knows lot of stuffs lately, it’s like a boast in his development. Firstly, he’s interested in 三字经 and knows how to recite the first few lines, but he sounds like ang moh speaking in Chinese. And he knows most of the phonics songs from Ants on the Apple, which I have stopped teaching him for months. But when he sees something, like the elephant on TV, he’ll start singing “Elegant elephant e e e ….e is the sound of e”. I was pretty amazed that he still remember most of the sound of the letters.

He likes drawing straight lines and circles too. But he’s getting bored with puzzles, or maybe I should start looking for new sets for him. And he likes watching TV now, most Disney Channel. He will watch after he comes back from school, at 4.30 for Barney and another session after dinner, for a short while.

He’s very helpful too. He will help our maid to hold the handkerchief almost everyday after his nap, or help taking care of Isabelle who’s placed in the pen. That day, when I was walking down the staircase with him, he said this…

Justin: Mommy, hold hands.

Me: Why? You can walk very well by yourself.

Justin: No, Justin want hold mommy’s hand. Justin hold mommy, won’t fall down one.

Me: Oh, ok, Justin hold mommy then. When Justin is big, will you hold mommy?

Justin: Justin hold mommy when mommy is (an) old woman.

Yikes, I don’t want to be an old woman!!! So, I asked him to say mommy leng lui. LOL!

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Justin is really a little boy now as he has lost his babyish look. He’s becoming thinner and taller. Terrible two tantrum is really around, but as he communicates better, it’s getting lesser. However, if he really does throw a tantrum, it’s getting harder to convince him otherwise!

He’s good at answering back. If MIL scolded him “naughty boy”, he’ll answer back “naughty po po”! So, the best thing is stop scolding him with bad words to prevent him from imitating. But he learns lots of them from his cousins!

Meal time is a still a battle time. He will make lots of excuses to get away from the dining table, and complains that his meal needs raisins, peanuts, yakult, and etc to be mixed with his rice. Better still, just give him plain rice without anything! He likes plain rice only…

He doesn’t take much milk nowadays, the maximum feed is only three from morning until bedtime. He stll snacks a lot, and he knows how to open the fridge to get his favourite stuffs! Luckily, he likes fruits such as grapes, apples, jackfruit, cherries, and etc, so I can give him fruits as snacks.

He doesn’t take some naps, only once in the afternoon for less than 2 hours. But he’s still very energetic, and alert throughout the day.

He likes singing, and is able to follow most of the songs he listens on the CD. Barney is still his favourite character, and Elmo comes second.

If everything goes well, he’ll be starting nursery next month. I’m yet to enrol him, but I think we’ll give him a try at Montessori.

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