Cagalli's Corner

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 :)

Here are some pictures of her during the class.

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".

And so daddy was the starlet, hahaha.

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.

Gotta go!

Ok, here's the last batch. There's more but it takes forever to upload. Enjoy these...

PLAYING WITH SQUIRT AND EOYORE


SINGING KALLI
Don't try to make out the words... the song's in Kalli's own language, hahaha.


DANCING AND PLAYING THE PIANO
My baby's such a musician!


Ok, that's it, that's the last. Now it's time to upload pictures, hahaha.

Here's more...

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'll try to upload part 3 soon.

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...