Little R Is Sixteen Months Old

Taking the bumboat to Pulau Ubin with Grammie and Pa

On a hike through a wetland reserve: she is an excellent walker

On the beach in Lamma Island, Hong Kong

Eating dim sum at a Michelin starred restaurant in Hong Kong

Now R has friends: this is her best friend F

Her new obsession: putting things in a basket and carrying it around

She finally figured out how to use the shape sorter

With another friend at one of the many baby play gyms in Singapore

Playing in the ball pit

Now that she's bigger she needs at least an hour of exercise daily

A rare contemplative mood, clutching her favorite guide book

Dancing on the furniture

When this month started, my parents were still visiting Singapore. We spent its first week traveling around Singapore, and then taking the 4.5 hour flight to Hong Kong, where R swam in the ocean, got caught in a torrential rainstorm, took multiple ferries, and ate a lot of Chinese food. Her favorite is dim sum, particularly the pork buns.

After they left, we all returned to our usual routine. Now that R is older, she has to get at least an hour of exercise every day (meaning we must visit a park or play gym). Just running around the apartment doesn't get out her energy sufficiently, and leads to boredom, naughtiness and temper tantrums. Play gyms are a little bit more convenient, because they're inside (=air conditioning, and no exposure to sun damage). We've probably made at least 10 visits this month to various facilities across Singapore.

R didn't have a lot of noticeable changes this month. She is still incredibly active and relatively physically advanced, easily able to scale furniture and slides (going up the wrong way). B found her standing on my desk yesterday (she used the chair to get up there). She can now open every non-locked cabinet in the house, unscrew bottle caps, and use crayons (though not well). She loves dancing and clapping her hands in time to music.

R remains social and extroverted. She is typically the first to approach other children, and will offer them objects or pieces of food in order to engage them. She has started to develop real friendships, and her favorite baby is F (who is three weeks younger and originally from Mexico). R's grandmother bought her a bunch of Dora the Explorer toys (rather to my chagrin, as usually she isn't allowed any branded products), and I think one reason R likes them is because F and Dora look very similar. Of course with social interaction comes social issues: R has pulled another baby's hair, and hit a few times; other toddlers have hit her, and she received her first bite this month. Generally R is not very aggressive, however, and tries to avoid conflict if possible.

She sleeps well (one 2-hour nap, 12 hours at night), eats well (though she is slightly more picky than she used to be, with a definite preference for carbohydrates and sweet flavors), and is usually good-tempered. She hurls things or has mini-tantrums (under 5 minutes) if frustrated, but so far we've been spared anything more serious. It helps a lot that I usually have enough free time to be patient with R's need to decide when to do things (like if we're going out, and she needs to put on her shoes, it's easy for me to wait 5 minutes for her to decide she's ready to go). Being rushed tends to result in more power struggles.

Nicknames: Fur, Furble, Zizi, Wiggle Worm
Temperament: Social, cheerful, curious, very active, willful
Things I Could Do Without: The way you convert the house into a disaster zone in just a few minutes. I don't bother picking up during the day because it's too heartbreaking. Sometimes around 5 pm I look around the piles of chaos surrounding me and am just amazed at the comprehensiveness of it. I am starting to try to teach you about putting things away, but it's a (very) slow process.
Item/Toy We Love the Most: Your new dolly. You carry her around, give her hugs and kisses, try to feed her (or give her sips of water from your water bottle), and give her toys to play with (especially your favorite elephant feely, which you seem to think she likes as much as you do). It's really, really cute.
Item/Toy You Love the Most: Your crab bucket. You load it up with toys, your water bottle, books, your elephant feely, or other things, and then haul your supplies around the house. You even pack it before we leave the house (though usually I end up carrying it in a few minutes).
Things I'm Loving Most Right Now: Your pretend games, where the doll wants water, or you 'talk' on the phone; how you come running towards me, smiling with glee, and hurl yourself into my arms; that you can follow simple instructions most of the time; your friendliness to others
Things You're Loving Most Right Now: Putting things in containers; opening containers/drawers (especially forbidden ones); climbing and tumbling (sometimes you will leap from a highish point onto the floor: I am not a fan); being the one in charge
Foods You Like: Cheerios, bread, rice, raisins, baked beans, garbanzo beans, children's snacks (puffs, cheese crackers, etc: you don't get these very often as I'm philosophically opposed), gummy candy
Sounds/words: Dada, Mama, no no no, what is this?, look at that, dog, mine, eyes, grrr (for tigers and lions), up (maybe). You are good at following instructions and remember what we say (for instance, if I say we are going to the park, you will turn the correct way once we are downstairs).