美味的指甲 - 把妈妈气得半条命都没了

The power of peer pressure/influence
The power of addiction
The power of lying

Mommy only got to cut her nails once in the past 2 months. Where did nails go? Stopped growing? April lied a few times that the teachers at school will cut her nail, Mommy asked the director last week, the answer is "school never cut student's nail." April's not capable of cutting her nail using any tool. The only sharp device she has is her own teeth.

No matter how nicely or meanly we explain to her that biting and eating nails is no good. There are germs in your nails, eating nails will get those germs into your tummy, and you will get sick. You might even need to see a doctor who will open up your tummy in order to take the nails out (threatening is no use either) She can't resist the tasty nails, they are way more delicious than any food on this planet!

Last week, Tuesday night, Mommy still could see some white nails, Wednesday night, all gone. Over the weekend, 辛辛苦苦长出来的指甲, all gone last night! When it's gonna end?

Phone conversation with Grandpa - another Lost in Translation

Grandma handed April her cell phone with Grandpa on the other side. She started an abstract phone conversation with him...

April: 我告诉你他(爸爸)在那里，他在东京。
(She walked over to the world map, and pointed at Tokyo)
Grandpa: ......
April: 就在这里。然后他会去上海，我告诉你上海在那里。
(She pointed at Shanghai on the map)
Grandpa: ......
April: 你知道了吗?

Quite a bit of imagination to do for Grandpa...

Literal translation

Mommy: Dragonfly 中文叫什么?
April: 龙飞

Both Mommy and Grandma can't stop laughing...

Grandma came...Daddy's out

Grandma came this Tue, bringing her the bike. Unfortunately, it's rainy days here, she can't ride it outside :(
Daddy left for his business trip for a little less than 2 weeks...

又去儿童博物馆

上星期天爸爸要上班，妈妈就带April去儿童博物馆。腹大便便的跟她在博物馆里面跑来跑去是非常不方便，就抓着她去做劳作。照片中的纸花瓶和纸花就是妈妈跟April一起做的。



牛脾气改不了
晚上和爸爸的同事吃饭，April试着用筷子夹毛豆，竟然给她夹起来！她开心，叔叔们也表扬她。她就不停得夹，也不知道她夹了几个， 大概是碗里的一半吧！然后，她遇到一个特难的，夹了半天都夹不起来，开始发脾气，而且越发越大，大人给她出主意，她不听还拍桌子~！然后，开始哭，扔筷子!大人给她弄得不知好气还是好笑。
其实她从小就是这样，自个主意很强，总是认为某样东西是怎么用怎么玩的，我们要教她新东西特别累~唉！

Photos from MN

Winter 2007

Loving 益力多

She noticed it in Marina Food and demanded us buying for her. Mommy doesn't really like it, so never motivated to buy one for her. Apparently she loves it and she even loves calling the name in Cantonese, to Mommy surprise~

自编自导自演

While waiting for Mommy to pick her up, she started doing her own song in front of her teacher. Her teacher found it amusing and filmed it for Mommy.

In preparation for little River

New brand: Invisible diaper
Instructor: April Wu

无题

Monday night, April came home with a new phrase. Using her pretended mechanical tone kept repeating...

I'm a robot.

Tuesday night, April came home and kept repeating, "macaroni cheese", later on she said...

Holy Macaroni Cheese!

Progress report on night diaper elimination

It's been 6 weeks sleeping free of training pant for April. She had a good start the first week, 1 minor accident, only wetting the underpants. Actual massive leaking did happen over the course, even a few times, wetting both pajamas and blankets. But frequency is relatively low while taking 6 weeks into consideration. And recent nights, she's been omitting the night pee which is even better, except last night, she demanded Daddy escorting her to the bathroom.

菜市场的鱼

某天在永和市场的鱼档买鱼，有一盘切好的大鱼头。鱼头边都是血，April就看着这些鱼好一会儿...
April: 这些鱼死了吗?
Daddy: 是啊！
April: Oh, 他们好可怜。但为什么呢？
(oh no, am I going to explain 弱肉强食 to her?? Is she going to turn to a vegan? And miss out on all the good food??)
Daddy: 死了才可以给我们吃呀！
April: Oh, 他们会勇敢的。 (没想到转态会那么快,绝对不是吃素的料子！)

English vs. Chinese: balance progression

April was excluded from English(not 100%, but 90% of the time since the surrounding is still English speaking) until 2.5 years old. As I mentioned before, she started off speaking Chinese to her English speaking classmates. Then she liked to count in Spanish than in Chinese. Later on, English started to gain ground. She spoke more English phrases at home and basically stopped talking in Chinese. And Spanish is out, and is still out even the school resumed language class. My guess is the current Spanish teacher is not as good as the one before. But we don't care much about Spanish. We got mad at her refusing to speak Chinese at home. A few fights with her, obviously, she couldn't understand why she can't speak only English, it's the norm at school. Her resistance is especially strong when it comes to Chinese poems, she argued that none of her classmates know Chinese poem. We realized it's not a good trend going down the path, so we forced her to translate English to Chinese whenever we could, and for anything she want to do or take or play, she must do the translation before she was allowed to do so. And this method seems to work. This shaped a period of time, she would do auto translation for everything. It got a bit annoying after sometime, and I guess she got tired of it also. Then she started an era of Chinese-only, since we were so demanding on her speaking Chinese. She would also pick on us, if we started talking in English to each other, she would warn us "No English at home(in Chinese)!" She spoke no English at home for quite some time that I started to worry about her English. I checked with couple of her teachers, they all gave positive feedback that April is communicating fine in English at school. Now it's pretty much at a stabilized state that she will say Chinese majority of the time at home, anytime we switch context to English depends on topics or people we are dealing with, she will follow. We are happy with the current state, but expect more fluctuation in the future.

不好好吃饭！

April吃饭从来态度就不好，有时好一点，但大多数时候都不好。最近这个老毛病又来了。都会用匙子叉子，也会用一点筷子，但就不好好的自己吃。最多，头10分钟会表现表现，随后就要爸妈一匙一匙喂。每天都是爸妈吃完了，等她完成任务。好几次都把爸妈弄得很生气，每天说她也不见有进步！

去爸爸妈妈公司鬼混

April的学校放假2星期，第一个星期在奶奶家过，第二个星期有三天在家。后2天就是1天去妈妈公司混，1天去爸爸公司混，因为没按排Daycare。三岁多还是需要人陪，叫她描字只能工作10分钟，然后就是妈妈这个那个的。带她去厕所给妈妈同事看到，这下可好了，几个阿姨叔叔围着她讲话，妈妈乐的在电脑前做了点事情，不过也不能太久。到妈妈找到她的时候，她在给其中的一个阿姨讲Dora的故事，那个阿姨告诉妈妈...

她给April说: I need to work.
APRIL说: I don't need to work.

然后，当然给妈妈把她叫出来。又来了2个好心的同事陪她。她就教起人家画龙，好心的Alvin叔叔还用他的iPhone给April照相。妈妈觉得这个龙比较像怪兽！





第2天去爸爸公司混，那里有大电视，爸爸就找了间会议室放Nemo给她看，怎知爸爸说给她去拿喝的，不一会儿April看到紧张的地方，就大叫OPEN OPEN OPEN。爸爸的2个同事听到了，马上冲进会议室，以为April受困，其实她是为动画片里的动物紧张才大叫。所以，三岁多还太早带小孩去上班。

看望小Arden

April的美梦破灭了！

April是满怀着向往来到了Anzel弟弟家。开始的时候很听话，跟妈妈洗手完才去碰Arden妹妹，还在她额头上轻轻一吻。Arden妹妹很乖，喝完奶就朦朦胧胧的睡去了，大人说话也没吵着她。April跟大人和Anzel玩了一回儿，才发现她没理Arden妹妹，就拉了椅子坐在Arden妹妹旁边，Arden妹妹是给放在一个小推车里。April坐了挺久的，大人叫她和Anzel弟弟玩，她都不肯。突然，Arden妹妹哭了。我们大人也不好，说笑说是她把Arden弄哭。这一下她害怕了， 跑来妈妈身边躲着。临走前还不肯跟Arden说bye-bye!

没想到这一点点就给April这么大的打击，过俩个多月River妹妹出来，她的痛苦可长着呢！

Starting to sound like teenager

The day before New Year, she was wearing this yellow crochet and playing in the open area outside of our garage. Then we need to head out for some shopping and asked her to change into a pair of proper shoes. Well, for some reason, she's not happy about it. Her response...

April: Leave me alone!

She also said something else in English, I couldn't remember the sentence, but that's exactly what will be coming out of a teenager's mouth. 唉~~~

描中文子

这是爸爸想出来的好主意。虽然April描的歪歪的，不过第一次也算不错啦！

April's art II

In recent months, April's drawing starts to take shape...

Can't remember when she drew these, sometime after Sept. The green one is a shark and the face below she said it's 灰尘精灵 from Miyasaki's Totoro.