This is Master Z’s favourite tree. I call it the Hide-and-Seek Tree…
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Leaps and bounds, leaps and bounds. So many new skills, new words, new concepts being acquired by Master Z. He has developed a love for bubbles. He loves them enough to learn the word for them, and then to learn to say “Bubb-ll pweez” and hand us the bubble wand. Saturday night he even managed to blow bubbles for the first time during his evening bath. Bubbles calm him down; they are almost meditative for him, so perfect before bed, or any time that Master Z needs to slow down. Yesterday R started teaching Master Z how to catch a ball. He delighted in this new skill and is keen to practice, practice, practice. I’ve also been taking him to the park and teaching him to kick the ball. Both activities lead to lots of huge, crinkly faced grins and giggles. This morning Master Z was hitting our bed, looking under the mattress, and crying “where zit gawn?”. Our bed contains storage space under the mattress where I keep future presents for Master Z, nieces and nephews. A couple of weeks ago Master Z saw his present and wanted it immediately (a big yellow truck – guaranteed draw-card for him!). However, I haven’t lifted up the bed recently, so this morning’s meltdown, as sad as it was, was exciting as it showed memory. He remembered the toy that is under the bed, even though he hasn’t seen it for a couple of weeks. More words, He copies us so much. shee shia – See you soon. Occasionally it actually sounds like “see you”, but usually it sounds like he is thanking us in Mandarin! bubb-ll – bubble ball doa – door car moa – more moose/meece – mouse ol gone – all gone ol done – all done hom – home mulk/milk – milk ug – hug ootside – outside baai – bye mao/cat – interchangeable for cat. Interestingly, he prefers to say “mao” instead of “cat”, even though he learnt “cat” first and can pronounce it properly where zit gawn – where’s it gone? He’s been saying this for a while now, I’ve just kept forgetting to record it! kakhi – Shakti. I know this one is a real stretch, but it’s all in the intonation and context. It is clear that he is trying to say Shakti’s name. R reads with Master Z most days and last weekend he started asking Master Z what certain pictures were. Until now we’ve just been asking “Where’s the ….?” and Master Z will point at the appropriate picture. R encouraged me to do the same, and suggested that I point to the mouse in the book and ask what it was. I had been trying to stick to words that I knew Master Z could say but I gave it a shot and couldn’t believe it when he said “moose”. I try not to underestimate him, but even so, there are so many things which he understands that I have no idea he understands. He can point out our car in a car park, he can point the direction home from the park, he knows the way to the closest playground (two and a half blocks away). The other day I told him that I needed to feed the cats and get my shoes on and then we would go outside (I usually keep up a running commentary on what is happening next for the day). He went and found my shoes in the living room and brought them to me! If there are clothes in front of the washing machine, he will put them in. He knows to pull out the washing powder tray, wait for me to put washing powder in and then push it back in. He knows to press the top half of the start/stop button to start the cycle, and knows to press and hold down the bottom half of the button to open the washer door after a wash has finished. He will then pull the clothes out onto the floor. Master Z is looking for R during the day now, at times running through the house calling “daddy, daddty, daddy” (the ‘t’ is not an error – sometimes he puts a “t”into the word “dad” or “daddy”). He has a sense of when R is due home and will really start looking for him then. When R does arrive home though, Master Z will often be all cool and “oh, you’re home. I’ll be with you in a moment”. Very anticlimactic after so much racing around and calling for his daddy. He loves riding in the bike trailer and will go to it and say “Up peez” when he wants to go out in it. He has definite ideas of what he wants to be doing and isn’t shy to tell me so if I suggest something different from what he has in mind. So far though, his tantrums mostly still fall under the “cute” label. He scrunches up his face, does a half squat and yells – oh so cute and so hard to not laugh at his adorable attempt to change reality through the power of his lungs. They are powerful lungs, it is true, but not powerful enough to change certain realities.
Off and on over the past few months, I have been looking for a blog template that suits what I want to do with my blog. I’ve experimented with a couple of designs but nothing has been quite right, or worth making the switch for. Last weekend, R asked if I’d googled wordpress templates. Uh no. I hadn’t even thought of that. I’d just been looking at the ones available within my blog admin pages. Silly me.
So last weekend I spent all my spare time (naptimes and evenings) googling templates and found a programme specifically designed for photographer blogs and galleries, and a designer whose templates I particularly liked. Brilliant. The templates are highly customisable and a vast improvement over the free ones that I’d been looking through.
I chose the template, waited till R had done his exam last week then asked for help with installing the programme and template. All good so far. R also set me up with my own domain name. Sweet.
I was so excited to get into it, set up my new-look blog and then email/FB an announcement of the new, improved, shiny Gypsycat Dreams blog. Sadly, the customising is a lot more involved process than I had anticipated, and during the process, the blog is not exactly in a fit state to be viewed – not to my perfectionist eyes, anyway. After spending all Friday evening and Master Z’s Saturday morning naptime trying to get the header edited, I had a massive day-long grump at the computer and faced reality that it was going to take a lot longer to get my shiny new blog. I could, sort of, justify spending a couple of evenings and couple of naptimes on it, to the exclusion of all else, if it meant that it would be all set up, ready for blogging by the end of it. However, if I am going to spend all that time and not necessarily have the shiny new set-up at the end, it becomes a lot harder to justify doing it *instead* of Things Which Must Be DoneTM – you know, the everyday stuff, the tax, the cleaning, the dishes, the cooking, the shopping, not to mention the photo editing and oh, actually putting the posts in my head onto my blog. So, R set things up so that my blog is back on a temporary template and the shiny new look is on a test site where I can tinker on it until it’s ready for viewing. Sadly, I think this means it will be a few weeks, possibly longer, before I get to squee about my gorgeous blog. R assures me that it’ll be worth it once I’ve surmounted this learning curve, but goodness! It is steep and challenging when my brain is already fried from the days events each day.
Zac has been enjoying paying for things for a month or so. He understands the concept of handing money over and accepting change, or handing a card over, punching buttons on a machine and taking the card out of the machine (he is not yet punching the buttons – there’s only so much goodwill on sales assistants’ part that I bank on).
Today, he bought his first book. Chose it, paid for it, and wouldn’t give it to the sales person to scan – he understands that he keeps the item chosen!
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Here’s the money
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What do you mean you want the book as well?
No, I know how this works. You keep the money, I keep the book!
Master Z has gone from crying if we ever dared to try and shower him, to standing at the shower door, crying because I’m not letting him in the shower. I don’t really enjoy my showers with a side of guilt, so now I share my showers.
But the final straw of “I have no privacy…No, *now* I have no privacy” was when Master Z brought a book into the bathroom and said “Up peez” while I was on the toilet today – apparently my loo breaks are extra reading times!
Still, I would prefer a small boy on my lap reading books than a small boy leaning on my leg, intently watching me pee, which is what R gets.
We have so many reading nooks in our house!
