Yes, he will say no for pretty much anything, if he is not in the good or cooperative mood, from taking a nap, eat, pee, poo, brush teeth, get changed, or simple wash hands. We know this is the normal behavior among two year olds.

However, saying no is not the only thing for my son.

Ever since he started walking, we always remind him to stay on the sidewalk whenever we’re outside. We told him how the street is for cars and cars are dangerous. Since then, he likes to keep saying “I want to be hit by a car” whenever we are around cars. One time I was holding his hand walking cross a parking lot. He saw a car coming and he suddenly let go my hand and stopped in the middle of the parking lot, said “I want to be hit by a car.”

He also likes to stand at the edge of the bed, says “Cyrus falls down.” Even though we took the bed frame out so it’s fairly low, we do live at the 2nd floor and what if that’s what he thinks when he stands by the windows?

I picked him up from the daycare yesterday. I asked him if he wanted to take the elevator or the stairs. He chose stairs. As we walked downstairs, he started saying: “Cyrus falls downstairs.” I said: “Why do you want to do that? You’ll get hurt and Mommy and Daddy will be very sad.” He answered me: “I want Mommy and Daddy to be sad.” Then he also pointed at t a stranger downstairs and said: “I want that man to be sad.”

See? This is the kind of bad attitude I’m talking about. It’s not simply about saying no to our requests. We’re actually a little bit worried where this is all coming from, how serious he actually is when he says those things, and if there is any potential psychological issues we need to be concerned.

I just realized he pooed in the diaper. I said: “Cyrus, you stink!” He said: “How much?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He was building a house with wooden blocks.
“What a nice building. Who lives there?” I said.
“Daddy.”
“Who else?”
“Cyrus.”
“Who else?”
“People.”
“Any people.”
“Yes.”
“How about Mommy? Does Mommy live there?”
“No.”
“Where does Mommy live then?”
“Mommy lives on Sesame Street.”

Overall a very smooth doctor visit other than the time trying to get him to stand on the scale. He had a little nice conversation with the doctor and even remembered the equipment on the wall is for the eyes and ears.

We’ve asked about his weight being a little above average and height below average. We thought maybe that meant his being a little over weight. However, the doctor seemed to think the extra weight is from his above average size head. Well, DH and I are both happy with his head size all along.

We also discussed with the doctor about his running nose, worrying he’s got DH’s allergy to cat and dog hair since our tenant has a cat. Doctor said we need the blood work to find out what he is allergic to. We also notice that Cyrus’ been having some kind of rash on his right arm for a couple months now. We tried a few different lotions and they don’t seem to help any. The doctor took a look and said it could be either Psoriasis or Eczema. He sent us to the dermatologist. So far, even the dermatologist doesn’t have a diagnosis. We are trying the prescribed medicine from the dermatologist and we hope it will help.

I tried to ignore him at first so he raised his voice and demanded “Mo…mmy read!”

I said: “Can you ask nicely?” He said: “Please.”

I wanted him to use a full sentence to ask me, like “Mommy, would  you please read to me?” We’ve been trying to teach him something like this for a while. So I said: “the other way.”

What he did next was to turn himself around, back towards me, and said “Please.”

I guess he sure knows what “the other way” means. XD

Time really goes faster than blinking once you have a child. Amazing.

Some reflections on how I’ve been doing for the past 24 months. There is a lot of try-and-error and they are all worth being written down. Here are a list of things that I would do again when we have another child and things that I am hoping to do differently.

Do’s:
1. Breast Feeding: one of best decisions I’ve ever made.
2. Quit night nursing and train baby to sleep through the night: I am not against co-sleeping at all but do believe every family is different and each family should work out their own arrangement. We started training him to sleep through the night and stopping co-sleeping when he was about one year old. It took about 1-2 weeks of difficult time but then it improved my sleep quality greatly. It also help him to sleep through the night and prevent teeth decay from night nursing.
3. Staying home for the first year: It’s hard to be a housewife but it’s good for the baby. It’s not always going to be an option but we will try. Maybe even work part-time from home is better than nothing.
4. Parenting books and Internet, and networking: I’ve found books and Internet help me tremendously. Magazine are not quite as good. Networking with other moms at Le Leche Leage was very helpful and encouraging. It helped me get through nursing difficulties.
5. Appropriate disciplines: we don’t believe in physical punishment. We try to reason with him and give out warnings. For things that cause great danger such as running to the street, we use “time-out” method.
6. Offer nourishing environment: lots of books and toys. Mostly age appropriate along with a couple thing for older ones to stimulate the child. Switch toys and books around to keep them “fresh”. It’s as important to let the child learn from daily routines and surrounding, let him observe a crawling ant is as educational as reading a book.
7. Offer different variety of foods: Cyrus is a picky eater so meal time is always kind of difficult. But we’ve learned not to get stressed over it. It’s very important to offer a variety of menus for him but let him make the choice.
8. Lots of love and laughs!

Donot’s:
1. Let other people stress you out: remember every child is different and has their own schedule. Don’t let other “know-it-all” people stress you out. Observe what other parents do, listen to what people say but trust your own instinct.
2. Nursing only: Breastfeeding is wonderful but I’ve found it’s important that the child is used to take a bottle from someone other than mom. I was so afraid that he would reject my breast so stopped using bottles completely. It was a mistake. He didn’t want to have anything to do with bottles. I can’t go out, neither wear dresses. It’s a lot of work and very inconvenient. Training a child to take at least a bottle a day will give mom and dad a lot of flexibility and if mom needs to go to work, she can pumped and have daycare/babysitter give him mom’s milk in a bottle! As nutritious but more convenient.
3. Argue in front of a child: we did this too often. When he was little he would cry. Now he is older he would say “sorry, Dada. sorry, Mama” even though he is not the reason of the argument. Children are very sensitive and it’s important to show your best in front of them. If an argument happens and the child is present, try to make up in front of him too. He needs to learn that people have conflicts and we can all come up with a solution in a civilized way.
4. Inconsistent: It’s very important to walk the talk in front of a child. I know sometimes I was too harsh on him, sometimes giving to easily. Neither is good. Consistency help a child learn and rules and compliance and it gives them security.

Though all children at the party were much older than Cyrus, he was happy just running after them and shouted and screamed. The party went on until midnight and he stayed up with everyone else. He started getting cranky as soon as the party was over. Looks like he is a party animal and likes crowds!

Love wrestling with other children, big or small.

Unlike last year, I ordered a cake from the store this time. I had them put in fresh fruit fillings and it turned our really good.

Make a wish, Cyrus!


Playing with other children!

We bought so many gifts for him last year. This time only a couple consider he already has so many. We put some money in his bank account too. He got a nice little table and two cute potty chairs from Grandmom as well as some books and DVDs. Not bad at all.

Opening gifts from Mom and Dad.

Opening gifts from Grandmom.

A fun “hat”!

Second cake, Ya!

I am a happy birthday boy!

For the past few weeks, he’s started to give out more specific demands/orders:

Mama jog. Mama nap. This. That.

One day he was grabbing my hand and said “Poo. Poo.” I thought he meant he was about to poo. But he kept pulling me to another room and it turned out he pooed on the floor. We were pretty impressed that he insisted that we COMPLETELY understand what he was saying and didn’t give in. We started some small steps for toilet training. He is willing to sit on the little potty but isn’t ready to sit on it without the diaper.

I taught him to say “dark outside”. Last night we were in the bedroom and he saw the dark living room, he said “dark outside” and looked a little bit scared. I said “are you afraid?” He said “dark outside, afraid”. Hmm….I hope he won’t be afraid of the dark cause we usually turn all the lights out when we go to bed.

We had lobsters for dinner last night. I showed him the lobster and he called it “shrimp”. He loves shrimp so I offered him the lobster but he didn’t want it. I think he might be a little freaked out by it. I hope not.

First time to the Niagara Falls. There were tons of people there and the bridge traffic was terrible. We only stayed for two hours but still paid for the whole day parking: $20. What a rip off. Cyrus wasn’t happy that he could only get to “see” the river and the falls but not being able to “touch” it.

He finally was happier when we let him down at the parking lot. He was playing with branches and got on a tree for the first time with the help from grandfather.

First time to the beach at the Alleghany State Park. He finally could use the shovel and the bucket for real. He loved playing with sand and wasn’t afraid of getting in the water. A five year old boy came and said to Cyrus “Can you help me build the castle?” Cyrus just looked at him blankly. It was really funny. At the end of the day Cyrus didn’t want to go home.

It’s a lot of fun going to a beach with Cyrus but it’s also a lot of work to clean him up afterwards.

When my parents were visiting a couple weeks ago, they tried to correct his throwing food habit by spanking him. My observation was that he didn’t get rid of the bad habit but learned one more bad behavior: hitting people.

I wasn’t completely against spanking but DH was. He thinks “time out” is a better option. After my parents left, no one spanked him and he stopped hitting people. We’re still trying to “educate” him not to throw food but at least he is not hitting people.

His being picky at the dinner table is another really troublesome issue. Our strategy now is to go with the flow the keep introducing different variety of foods but I really run out of ideas sometimes.

Cyrus (shady)

Frog (fxck)

Milk (mut)

truck (kuck)

Juice and goose (goose)

cereal (ceal)

screwdriver is similar to strawberry

water

dirty

dinｏ

ｒｈｉｎｏ

ｈｉｐｏ

ｚｅｂｒａ　（ｅｂａｎ）

ｕｐ

ｄｏｗｎ

ｈｏｔ

ｂｕｓ

ｓｔｉｃｋ　（ｓｈｉｃｋ）

ｗｉｎｄ

ｗｅｔ

ａｉｒｐｌａｎｅ

ｆｌｙ　（can say “ａｉｒｐｌａｎｅ　ｆｌｙ”）

ｓｅａｇｕｌｌ

ａｎｔ

ｂｉｒｄ　（ｈａｎａ）: I don’t know why but he insists calling bird “hana”. If I say “blackbird” he would say “black hana”

ｈｅｌｌｏ　（ｌｏ）

ａｌｌ　ｄｏｎｅ，all gone

night night

nap

pig (pit)

ice

mango (mangon)

apple

cake

bicyle is similar to popsicle

grandma (ganma)

kiss

hug

poo

bed, bread (bed)

no, yes

more

sorry

horse

giraff (raff)

yogurt (yogurk)

leopard (lepo)

tiger (tigo)

allegator (allgae)

helicopter (hellcoper)

ask him “do you have a good day?” He would answer: ”day”

“what happened?” answer: “happen?”

something he doesn’t know the name: ｍａ~ or ｔｈｉｓ

He can recognize and pronounce most of the letters. However, he sometimes would say “turtle” for T instead of pronouncing “T”; fox for F, etc.

He also knows we are talking in two different languages. He knows both English and Chinese for some words such as dogs, blueberry, cats, etc.

He has two toy astronauts, one fair skin with blue suit, the other one darker skin with orange suit. He calls the blue one Dada and orange one Mama…:D