Kalli was playing with Mamu the day after her party when I heard her say, "Mamu, thank you for giving me your gift." She then hugged Mamu and gave her a kiss. Mamu said "You are welcome!" Awwww, Kalli's such a sweet kid :) I thought that was the end of their conversation. But, as always, Kalli still had more to say. She started explaining. "I went to the mall. I wanted to buy it. But it was 20 pesos!" Hahaha! Mamu and I were trying hard not to laugh since Kalli was so passionate in her explanation and we didn't want to offend her :)
FYI, we really did go to the mall before her birthday and asked her what she wanted to buy in toy kingdom. She saw the Jungle Treetop and wanted to buy it then. Tita LA told her to tell Papu. She said, "But Papu's not here!" She was getting frustrated and I told her we couldn't buy it yet cause we didn't have money. I guess that's how you explain her 20 pesos remark ;)
Kalli attended the Gymboree (Shangrila Branch) Halloween party last October 29, 2009. Although it was a bit crowded, she still had so much fun! Below are some videos of her dancing :)
I was trying to make Kalli nap the other day. See, she was really very sleepy but was fighting it. So I took her to our room and told her to lie on the bed. At first I was playing with her ear. That usually makes her sleepy. But she was really fighting it hard. She even told me it was daytime and she wants to go out. I told her she needs to take a nap and, after her nap, she'll have a prize. I then proceeded to sleep beside her. When she saw that I was sleeping, she closed her eyes too. She kept twitching and moving around though so I knew she was still awake. After a while she started hugging me - still with her eyes closed. Then (I guess because of boredom) she started lying down on my back - still with her eyes closed.
Suddenly she opened her eyes, sat down and said, "Mommy, I dreamed!" I was really trying not to laugh.
I told her, "But Kalli, you didn't sleep!"
"I did!"
Hahaha! Oh-oh, I think we're gonna get a lot more of this as she grows up :D
Here's a picture of Kalli reading to her "friends". She really loves books (like mommy!). She can actually spend hours in Fully-booked or Powerbooks just reading. We need a library to store her and my books, hahaha.
Enjoy the picture (taken October 10, 2009 - Kalli @ 2 years and 11 months)
Kalli can talk very well. But even now she still can't pronounce the letter R. It's "wotoy" for later, "latoy" for later. "yabit" for rabbit... you get the point. I bought her this pre-k workbook from national bookstore and there's a section there for phonix. For each letter, you encircle the pictures of those starting with that letter. Kalli's very good at it! When we got to Y though, she got a bit confused...
Mommy: (singing here) The Y says Ya, the Y says Ya, every letter makes a sound, the Y says Ya.
Mommy: Kalli, does House start with Y?
Kalli: Ya Ya House. No!
Mommy: Very good! Does Yak start with Y?
Kalli: Ya Ya Yak. Yes!
Mommy: Very good! Does Yellow start with Y?
Kalli: Ya Ya Yellow. Yes!
Mommy: You're so good baby! Does Racket start with Y?
Kalli: Ya Ya Yaket. YES!
Oh no, mali! Hahahaha!
This happened a couple of months ago. Even now I still laugh thinking about it :)
Here's Kalli writing her own name. For the record, she has learned to do this when she was 2 years and 5 months old. She has already written her name on all her books. Needless to say, she has learned to spell her name too. Aside from her name, she knows how to spell MOMMY, DADDY, DOG and CAT too.
(Did you get her joke there in the end? ;b)
And here's Kalli drawing tita May's garden. She really loves to draw. She prefers drawing to coloring. Though I've bought her lots of coloring books, she likes her sketch pads more. So far she has finished four 50-page sketch pads. Maybe I'll post some more of her drawings here. Right now her favorite subjects are fishes, ponds, beach and ocean, horses, elephants, boats and people.
Kalli had her first dentist appointment last May 23, 2009. I was worried that she'll lose most of her teeth by the time she turns 3. I've been brushing her teeth regularly but I guess her temporary teeth is weak because her 4 front teeth already have cavity :( I wanted to bring her to a pedia-dentist that my friend recommended but I didn't want to wait, so I just brought her to "Little Ones" in the Mall of Asia. I was afraid she would cry and I tried to explain that the dentist will clean her teeth and ask her to open her mouth prior to us going there. I even showed her some pictures. I was really happy and proud when she willingly sat on the dental chair and did everything the dentist asked her! She was so behaved and quite the big girl! She was even willing to go inside the room alone with the dentist :) The dentist checked all her teeth and gave her a fluoride cleaning. She recommended filling up 4 of her teeth (one per visit) and we'll probably do that. I know it's only temporary teeth but I don't want her to have a gap very early. It might skew the growth of her permanent teeth.
Anyway, below is a picture of her in the dental chair. See how happy and unafraid she was? :) I wanted to take more pictures but the dentist didn't allow picture taking while she was working.
Kalli was watching Baby Einstein's Baby McDonald with tita LA a little while ago and I was in the other room. I could hear their conversation and I found it pretty fascinating and funny. It started out with Kalli asking her tita LA for milk.
Kalli said, "Milk please, milk please".
Tita LA answered, "You ask the cow for milk." If you're not familiar with Baby McDonald, there's a song there that goes, 'The cow gives us milk, the cow gives us milk...'
Kalli smartly answered, "Sometime the people can give us milk."
Tita LA replied, "No, the cow gives us milk. Ask the cow for milk."
By this time, I think Kalli was getting frustrated. "Milk, milk, milk!"
"How do you ask???", tita LA asked her.
"May I have my milk please?" Kalli tried again.
"Okay, ask the cow." Tita LA again replied.
"Milk please. You're the cow. You're the cow tita LA!"
"I'm not the cow!" Tita LA replied, sounding a bit incredulous.
Hahahaha, I don't think you can win with Kalli! I can just imagine all her arguments and excuses when she grows up... Hmmm, what a sobering thought...
Here's the last set of the PRE-K videos. Notice how at home Kalli was already on the 3rd day. There were only two of them left and both kids were feeling a bit competitive, hahaha.
Warning: There are more video clips in this set. But I just had to upload them all! I'm sure you'll enjoy them too :)
Singing the Welcome Song
Where is Kalli? She's been practicing this song at home
We're Gonna Shake
According to Kalli, we wear the hat when it'raining in the head, and the umbrella when it's raining on the floor, hahaha
Kalli's so "Daldal"! Bibo-kids too :)
The kids were feeling so competitive. Did you hear Kalli ask the teacher, "Are you going to start with Kalli?" Hahaha
Both kids didn't like the glue on their hands, hahaha.
I love this! Kalli was having trouble carrying the drum, hahaha
Kalli wanted to sing Ariel's Song... panalo, hahaha
Some writing exercises... Kalli was so curious
Okay, that's the last. Hope you enjoyed them as much as I did :)
As promised, here are more video clips of Kalli's trial PRE-K class. But before that let me just share how Kalli loved her classes. Her classes start at 2pm. That's usually her nap time. For 3 days she fell asleep in the car going to class. I let her sleep in her stroller until 15 minutes before the class. When it's time to wake her up, I just tell her, "Kalli, we're here at Gymboree. It's time for your class. Are you ready?". For three days, she would immediately wake up, almost in a panic, and say "I'm ready! I'm ready!". Hahaha, it was so funny how excited she got. Even now, she tells me once in a while that she wants to go back there. Oh, if only we have the money :(
Anyway, going back to the videos, these clips were taken during the second day. There were only 3 of them left. The other girl Allysa was sick and had to go home. The other boy didn't participate much cause he didn't want to let go of his toy. You'll notice that Kalli was feeling more confident here than her first day.
Here, Kalli was tasked to find "Tueday". She was so good :)
This here is one of my favorites :) I love how she's always so curious and willing to learn. She so proud of herself too, it's adorable :)
Notice that Kalli was always looking at her classmates.
Notice how she was almost always the one answering? :)
Kalli loves arts and crafts too :)
Here's another favorite of mine :) She was so funny singing "Old McDonald" :) I guess she liked the headphones more than the crayons.
I've been trying to teach Kalli her numbers but she seems to be having trouble remembering what they look like. I bought her these rubber numbers which I use as flash cards and one time we were playing with it. I asked her to show me number 1 but she couldn't remember. In frustration, I picked it up and told her, "Kalli, I've been trying to teach you number 1 for a long time. Why isn't it sticking to your head?" She told me then, "Okay okay, it will stick now." Then she took the number 1 and tried to plaster it to her head! Hahaha, I laughed and laughed. When it started falling, she said, "It's not sticking mommy!" Hmmmmmmm, stick to head nga naman...
Anyway, this last week I tried a different approach to teaching her. For the whole week we're only learning numbers 1 and 2. I carry the rubber numbers everywhere and throughout the day I'll ask her what they are. We started last monday and it seems she has learned it already. When I mix the numbers 1 and 2 with the others, she can easily pick them out. Hopefully it sticks even when we start learning the other numbers too :)
I signed up Kalli in a free 3-day pre-kinder trial class at Gymboree and she was soooo good! She loved it too! I was so tempted (and still is) to enroll her in June. If only it wasn't so expensive :( One school year of PRE-K is 58,000 pesos.
At first there were 4 of them in the class. Two of them (Kalli and Allysa) were 2 years and 5 months old, while the others (JM and Julia) were 2 years and 8 months. Among the four, Kalli and Julia seemed to be the most ready to attend school. By the last day, the two of them were the only ones left.
I took a lot of videos and I'll be posting them as I upload them. For now, here are some clips from the first day.
In this video, Kalli was telling her teacher how she got the fish tattoo on her hand during the playtime session before class. Her teacher was pretty impressed with the way she talked and told me so at the end of the class :)
Kalli was still a bit shy during the first day. By the 3rd day she owned the place, hahaha.
In this video, Kalli was asked to put Gymbo's picture on "Monday". She was told that "Monday" starts with M and she found it. I was so proud, hahaha.
It was story time here and the teacher gave them cookies to eat while they listened to the story. Kalli loves stories and books and she was so attentive.
As promised, here are some videos of Kalli's 2nd day of swimming class.
Here's Kalli and me doing "The Swimmers in the Pool". Remember this? I posted a video of her practicing this in her inflatable pool :) She loves this!
Here's Kalli "On the Duck". They're practicing their jump. You can hear the teacher reciting Humpty Dumpty in the background. You'll see Kalli doing that in the next video :)
Here's the "Humpty Dumpty". I don't think this is Kalli's favorite part, but she's still trying, right?
Here's the Monkey Walk. She can do it with very little support now :)
Here's the Head Dip.
Here's the Head Dip again, this time with her legs kicking :)
That's it for now. Tomorrow's her 3rd day of class so expect more videos in the next days :)
I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before but I've enrolled Kalli in a swimming class. She has gone swimming a couple of times before and I noticed she isn't afraid of the water so I want her to learn early while she has no fears yet.
Yesterday was her first day of class with Aqualogic. She's taking her class at Richmonde hotel in ortigas once a week. The pool is indoors and is heated and I'm happy about that. There were 7 aquababes (19-35 months old) students with her. We did a lot of singing and playing and there were lots of toys about. Kalli loved it! I was a little worried at first that she'll cry cause a lot of the kids there did. But she didn't, and we're so proud. Since Richmonde was very near her daddy's office, Leo got to see her too :)
Kalli loves to play stickers. Two weeks ago tita LA bought her this very nice sticker book with crabs and shells and beach things. She got the shovel for herself, a crab for me, and a starfish for her daddy.
She said "I'm the shovel. It looks like a spoon mom. You're the crab. Daddy, you're the star". She can be quite bossy, if you noticed.
"My crab is small. It's a crab-let", I jokingly told her.
"Okay", she said. "You're the crab-let. I'm the shovlet. I'm the looks-like-the-spoon-let. Dad, you're the starlet".
My sister has been telling me to set a study time for Kalli everyday cause she's worried that Kalli's not so "amazingly advance" anymore, hahaha. I'm not sure if I should do it though. She might start getting pressured and start hating the word (and concept of) "study". What I've been doing is teaching her things while playing. For example, I remember when I taught her the letters when she was around 14/15 months old. She has these flash cards and at first I tried teaching her by showing her the cards and making her say the letters. She didn't like it though. I noticed she liked stepping on the cards and pretending they were her shoes. What I did was, instead of asking her to say the letters, I put the cards (4 at a time) on the bed and asked her to step on letter . It worked. And she enjoyed it too :)
Anyway, here are some of the things she knows:
She knows how to count 1-10. She can sometimes count up to 19 too, except she confuses 11 and 7. She goes 1, 2, .... 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 8, 9, 10, 11, 8, 9, 10, ... hahaha. You have to help her with the 12, then she's good again :)
She recognizes most of the capital letters
She knows how to spell KALLI
She knows the colors red, blue, yellow, green, purple, orange, gray, brown, black, and white. She even knows dark and light (e.g. light blue vs dark blue)
She knows the shapes circle, oval, triangle, square, heart, star, and cross. She keeps forgetting rectangle though.
She knows a LOT of nursery rhymes
She can converse (in English) quite fluently. She rarely has trouble communicating what she wants.
She knows most of the Disney songs and characters
She can count 1-6 in Spanish
She knows how to use the plural form of words (adding s or es), use of 'ing', and some past and present tense words
She knows what the bats use to see in the dark (it's echolocation, hahaha)
I'm trying to teach her to recognize numbers and small letters now. I think she knows 1, 2, and 4. Mamu wants her to learn how to spell 3 letter words like 'cat' and 'dog' but I believe it's more important to recognize the letters first. Tita LA wants her to learn to add and subtract (by counting). That'll probably be easier since she can count objects now.
Here are some adorable baby things she does:
She can't pronounce R. It always sounds like Y (e.g. water sounds like 'wotoy')
We have a routine before going to sleep. Play 1 toy, read 1 book, close the lights, drink milk, drink water, then sleep. Usually she sleeps on her own. There are a few times however when she would ask me to carry her like a baby and sing "Rock-a-by-baby". It's so funny and adorable, specially since she's so big now.
When she hides, she only covers her eyes.
She calls sweeping "brooming".
She pronounces following "followling"
There are a lot more, but I think these are enough for now. Kalli's here by my side now and she wants me to play LEGO with her. I'm trying to teach her to play on her own but she's resisting it. I hope she learns it soon.
I HAVE TWO HANDS We're trying to teach her left and right but sometimes she gets confused - like mommy, hahaha.
ALPHABET SONG - MORE OR LESS
ONE TO TEN - KALLI VERSION
HICKORY DICKORY DOCK - KALLI VERSION
PLAY PRETEND Kalli also loves to play pretend. She's so "daldal"! Listen to her talk and talk... Just don't mind the blurry picture (and other things, hahaha)
I've been neglecting this blog and I'm really REALLY SORRY :( There's so much to tell and so many pictures and videos to upload. I just can't seem to find the time. Tsk tsk tsk, bad bad mommy :(
Anyway, Kalli's 2 years and 4 months now. She has learned so much!
Major milestones:
- She doesn't drink from the bottle anymore. We got rid of the bottle when she turned 2 and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Actually, it was surprisingly easy! She only cried for 2 nights then quickly adjusted. Now she drinks milk from the cup or from a straw bottle :) - She doesn't wear nappy during the day anymore. She only wears it when she's sleeping or when we go out. Pretty cool huh? :) - She has learned SO MANY nursery rhymes! See some samples below:
I'M A LITTLE TEA POT
LITTLE MISS MUFFET
YANKEE DOODLE
COBBLER COBBLER This one's my favorite, hahaha. She was crying already because mommy was being bossy and was forcing her to recite on camera. Well, not really... almost... hey I wasn't being bossy!
I'll post more next time. I took a lot of videos this morning but I haven't uploaded them all yet. Maybe tomorrow again... maybe...
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