Tufeil's 21st Month

Tufeil has been VERY CRANKY this month when it comes to going to the bathroom. He has always avoided it like a plague but lately, he's been struggling more physically and screaming like hell. What confuses me is that, he LOVES to wash his hands and wash things. So sometimes I con him with a "Wanna wash your hands?" and rushed him into the toilet.

He knows when he is doing his "pipis" (pee). Next would be toilet training him but am not thinking about that right now.

SPEECH

Nowadays, he has a few favourite phrase:

1. Ya Allah dah pecah (its broken) / dah jatuh (dropped)! - Always pretending his toys are broken after he banged them.
2. Jatuh hm hm pastu berdarah (Fall down hm hm then bleed) - Because we always warn him not to do this and that lest he falls down and hurts himself!
3. SHARE SHARE. - This comes when we try to tell Syifaa' to share the toys with T. In turn, T uses it back and tell Syifaa' to SHARE which doesn't really mean the real thing but more like "It's my turn!". I tried telling him that HE has to SHARE HIS toys too meaning if its HIS toys, he's got to let Kakak play with it for awhile.

READ??

I don't know whether this is a one-off or just a picture memory, but I shockingly discovered that Tufeil recognised the word Al-Malik written in Arabic. He's always loved to play the Asma'ul Husna iphone app and his favourite Name of Allah is Al-Malik. It just made him giggle. He often presses that single Al-Malik icon to play over and over. And then on our flight back home from Syria via Dubai on Emirates, we watched the cartoon Cars and it had Arabic subtitle. At one scene I can't recall where, he just pointed to the word and say "Al-Malik"! Amazing!

Another time was TIMMY TIME on Playhouse Disney on TV. The name of the show appeared before any of the characters and he called out "TIMMY TIME"!

SINGING

Just like his parents, he LOVES to sing. Right now, he LOVES the national day song 5 stars arising. When he's cranky, I would sing that. When he refuses to sleep and demands for iPod, I would sing this instead. The amazing thing about it, he catches on very fast and could sing on his own.

He could sing in parts the Barney's I LOVE YOU song, Smurf's lullaby "Try to sleep now..", Incy Wincy and a few others but...

The funniest part is he could make his own song in his own words/language just humming or lalalaing. Or sing a song in a lazy incoherent way just like I do when I'm bored. hahaha

DANCING

Other than singing, he also likes to dance - like his mummy too. I try to get him to lift his legs, but so far, the action is only from the hand and swaying side to side. But also lately, he's been doing this Afro-latin number - crouching (like ruku') and hands and body swaying side to side. I remember I was doing this class for a few weeks when I started to conceive. HAHAHAHA

FAVOURITE food of the moment is definitely BANANA and mushroom. If he sees banana, he will demand for it and can eat like 3 pieces a day! and will keep at it till all's finished!

Another one is mushroom, started from our trip till now. A few times now when I was cooking and he was bugging for me to carry him for he could see, I just gave him a bowl of mushroom to feast on. The funny thing is I think he doesn't chew it well because in his poop, I could see the bulat2 (round shapes) of whole mushroom pieces in BROWN! HAHAHAHAHAHA

I've been encouraging him to care for his toys by role-playing or pretend play. He has a baby boy doll. I would pick it up and pretend he had pooped (that is a brown stain on his backside) and washed and changed his diaper and then asked if he wants susu (milk). From then on, Tufeil has been asking ALL his toys if they want milk including his toy truck, train, giraffe bla bla bla. The cute thing is, with the baby boy doll, he would pat him after thrusting him to me for milk. Come to think of it, he usually pats ME when we're going to sleep. Funny boy.

I can push him down a short slide on his own without me going down with him. I really really wonder, WHEN can he start jumping and climbing on his own. I know this delay is because we are too over protective. Just yesterday I saw a little boy couldn't be more than 16months old climbing and getting down from the $1 2-seat car ride without any supervision! I would love for Tufeil to be adventurous like that. But my hands are tied.