08.07.05
Posted in Maddy, Maddy's first words at 9:59 am by tina
Maddy started to sing/read lately. Best records so far:
1) The “Jesus” song (Theme song from VBS Construction Zone this year)-
‘Just like JESAA, just like JESAA… He’s my Coner, He’s my Coner, He’s my Conerstone’
Sometimes she speaks like a Chinese person, can’t get the “R”, “S”, “L”s right yet 
Her ‘green’ sounds more like ‘gleen’ and ’snack’ is ‘nack’.
2) Ring around the rosie Maddy version-
‘Ring around the rosie.. a posie.. Asheee Asheeeee, fall down’
Best ‘readings’:
1) From Five Little Monkeys:
‘No more monkey jumping on the bed’
2) From the fuzzy bear book:
‘Is it ball?’ ‘no, mommy too tired to play’
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06.12.05
Posted in Maddy's First, Maddy's first words at 10:23 pm by tina
Maddy’s first sentence in question form when we played peekaboo in the car:
She covered herself with her bai-bai and said “Where Maddy go?”
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05.31.05
Posted in Maddy's first words at 10:34 pm by tina
Mommy: (sneezed)
Maddy: bless ooh mommy
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05.24.05
Posted in Maddy's first words at 10:11 pm by tina
Now a days we can actually have a semi-conversation with Maddy, and she responds quite a few words/phrases that surprise us:
On the way home from school yesterday-
Maddy: Ice popsicle!
Mommy: You would like to have a ice popsicle? Well, we have to walk Brownie first.
Maddy: Walk Brownie? No walking
Mommy: No walking? No… then we can’t have ice popsicle
Maddy: Walking!
Mommy: ok.. and you can have your ice AFTER we walk Brownie.
On the way home from school today-
Mommy: Maddy, daddy is in California now. He won’t come back until Friday.
Maddy: Daddy meeting!
Mommy: Yea, daddy has many meetings there.
(Daddy had several weekend/weeknight church meetings and Maddy had associated meetings with the reason daddy is away)
=======================
In her playroom drawing on this magnetic board-
Maddy: Mommy, froggy!
Mommy: You want mommy to draw a froggy?
Maddy: Maddy froggy.
Mommy: Draw a Maddy froggy?
Maddy: Yea
Mommy: (I drew a froggy)
Maddy: clean
Mommy: Mommy wants to draw another froggy (and I started to doodle)
Maddy: (squeezed herself next to me, took my pen, and said) Move back.
Mommy: (I was in shock.. and started laughing in my head… thinking.. I think my daughter just told me to ‘move back’) Did you say ‘move back’?
Maddy: (totally ignoring me).. Maddy daw (her draw) daddy froggy
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05.20.05
Posted in Maddy's first words at 9:47 am by tina
Report from daddy (I’m so proud of her I can’t wait until tonight to blog):
Daddy dropped Maddy off at her school, but all the kids were in the next room. Baby girl said
“No one’s here”!
As a true “Chen”, she stepped into the next room and stood straight up.. waited for someone (which Ms K did) to comment on her new shoes and gave her big smile.
Daddy said I just had to be there. I can totally see the whole scene in my head though, plus I have plenty of mommy-Maddy moments.
Daddy said Maddy is really an ideal child in his mind, and I couldn’t agree more. She is growing and developing much fast than we expected!
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05.10.05
Posted in Maddy's first words at 10:54 pm by tina
Songs Maddy loves to request since last week:
1) “Happy Birthday to you”
She actually says “Happy berday to ooh.. Happy berday to daddy; happy berday to Amah; happy berday to Maddy”
2) “Old MacDonald had a farm”, which she sings
“Old MacDonal E-I-O”, and had repeatedly requested non-farm animals such as bears to be sung with the song
3) “ABC’s Alphabet Song” — Maddy’s version
“A-B-C-D…. I…. Q..” Sometimes she gets more letters right, but mostly ABCD is the only consistent part
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04.26.05
Posted in Maddy's first words at 9:02 pm by tina
It is as if all the sudden talking nerves ‘clicked’ in Maddy’s brain this past weekend, she is now picking up three word phrases:
“there you go”; “one more time”; “more sta-berries” (so her ’strawberries’ is not quite there yet)
And it is so amazing how kids can be bi-lingual so effortless, no extra time nor help required.. I’ve watched the kids in Maddy’s class, they talk to the teachers and each other in English. When their parents come, they switch their languages with their parents.. then turn around and talk to each other in English again. I wish I had that ability to pick up Enligh that fast when I first moved here..
So on our way home-
Mommy: Maddy, where are the horses?
Maddy: there… daddy horse, ben-ben horse, Maddy horse…
Mommy: What is ‘horse’ in Chinese? (I asked in Chinese, as my feeble attempt to speak more Chinese to her)
Maddy: Ma–h! (she said proudly)
I suppose that does serve as my inspiration to teach her more Chinese; I’m way behind though. According to her daily report today, her teachers were amazed on how fast she is using her words.. they mentioned the specifics such as penguin, flamingo, cow, pig, etc.
Sadly, I believe I need to look up ‘flamingo’ in Chinese.
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04.22.05
Posted in Maddy's first words at 9:47 pm by tina
In the spirit of ‘Friday’, I left work a little early and got to chitchat with Ms Koronic at Maddy’s preschool. Both Ms K and Ms Basset have mentioned that Maddy has accelerated in her speech these past two weeks. Here is the best records of what Maddy has said so far:
To Ms B: More milk, please!
To Ms K: Juice, please!
To mommy: big spoon
Go figures… even her first ’semi-sentences’ are all food-related
====================================
4/23 update…
The child is picking up speech like crazy now…
We spent a good hour reading this morning, and she spoke many new words. This is worth blogging though:
Maddy: Duck
Mommy: That’s not a duck. It’s an Ostrich!
Maddy: Ost? (looking at me very suspeciously)
Mommy: Yes, an Ostrich.. (we flipped and continued reading)
10 seconds later.. Maddy declared loudly to me:
BIG DUCK
I suppose an Ostrich does look like a big duck!
————-
The workers are working on our backyard and Brownie started to bark
Mommy: Brownie (very annoyed…)
Maddy: Braw–nie… No BARKING!
I couldn’t believe it! She said it with such authority and she sounded exactly like me. Same tone and everything… Poor Brownie, now she’s got two people scolding her.
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04.21.05
Posted in Maddy, Maddy's first words at 9:02 pm by tina
New things we saw for the first time during our daily walk:
1) A yellow butterfly… we got to watch it for whole two minutes before it flew far far away
2) A short little baby snake… Brownie found it first, and I got brave and showed Maddy what a snake looks like… then the snake took interests in staring at us, so mommy decided it was time to say goodbye
3) We also saw three ducklings and two HUGE rabbits over the past weekend. To my disappointment, Maddy was not all that excited about the baby duckies.
New things she’s been saying:
1) She said “Maddy” for the first time today…. not just “Maa”
2) Maddy: HOT (when she first steps into the bath tub)
Mommy: Is it hot?
Maddy: No.. war (for warm)
3) Maddy: Chon-chon? (bug in Chinese)
Mommy: Where is it?
Maddy: Daddy (as in daddy ‘took care’ of them)
We saw two chon-chons the other day and mommy had asked daddy to ‘take care’ of them while Maddy and mommy went downstairs first. When we came up again, Maddy was disappointed that chon-chons were no longer there. I guess she knew who was the last person with the chons-chons because she immediated said DADDY. Yep, daddy the chon-chon killer!
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04.13.05
Posted in Maddy's first words at 10:46 pm by tina
Mommy: Who is mommy’s baby girl?
Maddy: Maa! …. daddy?
Mommy: Is daddy mommy’s girl?
Maddy: No… boy
Mommy: Yes, daddy is a big boy.
Maddy: Bra?
Mommy: What is Brownie?
Maddy: Dog.
Mommy: Yes, Brownie is a dog.. She is a girl dog.
Maddy: Ben-Ben?
Mommy: Is Ben-ben a little boy?
Maddy: No
Mommy: Ben-Ben IS a little boy.
Maddy: Cole?
Mommy: Is Cole a little boy?
Maddy: No
Mommy: Cole IS a little boy.
Maddy: Ary?
Mommy: Is Avery a little boy?
Maddy: Yes
Mommy: No, Avery is a little girl
That’s what I thought.. She can’t know the gender difference now… but she does know that daddy is a big boy, mommy is a big girl, and Brownie is a dog
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04.10.05
Posted in Maddy, Maddy's first words at 5:11 pm by tina
Ever since Maddy moved to the Y2 class, she has all the sudden grown up quite a bit. One of the new things she does now is walking long distances. For a while she is into ‘bau-bau’ all the time, but now she demands to ‘walk’ when we take our daily walks.
Not just simple walking, she HAS to hold on to Brownie too. Whe Brownie goes too fast or wonders into bushes, Maddy gives her serious commands “Bra… no, no” and tries to pull Brownie back.
Several neighbors commented that “wow, she is taking big girl walks now! no s-t-r-o-l-l-e-r!!” I didn’t know it was a ’stage’ that kids grow into, and thought it was awefully funny that they spelled the stroller out so that Maddy didn’t hear the word.
The weather is gorgeous today, and more than half of our neighbors are doing landscaping/yardworks. Our next door neighbor, the profession landscaper who designed our front lawn, was busy planting Heavely Blues around the fences and she decided to let us ‘help’. Maddy planted the seeds here and there, and we broke her nice glass bowl and had to end our ‘helping’ session real quick
Daddy had a VBS meeting in the afternoon, so we just hung out in the neighborhood, mall, back to the totplayround at home for the good part of the Sunday afternoon. Out of the three hours we’re out, she probably walked for a good hour and a half.
When she got tired (which she did, at our latest Brownie walk), Maddy just squatted down for a few seconds. I asked her if she needed to be bau-baued, but she said no and then got up and continued to walk.
She even mumbled a whole bunch non-understanble things on the way home trying to tell either me or Brownie something… my funny toddler.
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03.30.05
Posted in Maddy, Maddy's first words at 11:00 pm by tina
According to the new teachers, Maddy has been doing well in the Young Toddler II class all this week without being clingy or crying. But I knew she really started to like the class yesterday morning while I sat next to her car seat and had our morning conversations before heading to work:
Mommy: Maddy, who are you going to play with today?
Maddy: (pondered a bit), Ben-ben..
Mommy: Mommy needs some kisses.. (proceeded to get my morning kisses from her)
Maddy: (looking at me straight in the eyes), Mommy, BYE-BYE.. and pushed me away.. Ben-ben
Mommy: You ready to see ben-ben?
Maddy: Bye-bye mommy… (blow kisses)
The activities in the Y2 class are so much more ‘physical’. The other day they planted carrots as well as other veggies in Primrose Patch, and they played in the ‘mud’. Not something I would usually allow Maddy to do. Not because it’s wrong or anything, but I don’t think I’ll be able to stand watching her with mud all over her hands. It is incredibly FUN for them though. I’ve seen the photos of that class on the TV screen. Sometimes they all strip down to just diapers and they do ‘body paintings’ with stuff like mayonnaise. The big smiles on their faces with the mess all over their bodies, priceless! Part of me wish I have the guts to have Maddy ‘roll in catch-up’ at home.. but mostly, I’m just grateful for the young teachers in that classroom.. how they ‘let the kids be kids’ while learning arts, and I’m glad all I have to deal with is just another set of dirty outfits.
The teachers also told me that Maddy has special interests in arts and crafts and she is showing better skills than kids much older than her in her class, and they also commented that she is very good with puzzles. Puzzles I understand… but again, I find myself not really knowing what to do with my ‘artistic’ child. I am still convinced that this particular interest of hers is totally environment enforced. She was doing hand painting at the age of 4 months.. I remember wondering why they bothered to do all that stuff with the babies when they ‘obviously’ didn’t know what’s going on.
Maddy also came back with an incident report. She defended her scooter that she was riding by biting the other kid…. Not without a price though… her nose was slighted scraped because she got pushed down. Well, I am glad my girl stood up for herself. It’s pretty amazing kids their age already know how to ‘protect the weak and fight against the strong’. I watch them interact with babies next door, and they all know to be extra gentle around them. But when they’re with peers their own age, there is definitely the sense of ‘equality’ and ‘you don’t take my stuff and I don’t take your stuff’ going on. At the same time, it’s nice to see them start to learn how to share, a skill not really inborn to them.
Over all, I am pleased with the Y2 class. There are definitely more advanced learning and activities going on, and Maddy has become more vocal and articulate in the short time she’s there hanging with kids older than her. I think the average age there is 2 year old, and most of them can talk up a storm now. It’s exciting to think that in a few months, Maddy will carry normal conversations with us!
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