Month 28: Stories from school

8.30AM – 5.30PM

9 hours!

No, I am not talking about my working hours here. This is in fact the number of hours that Bing-Bing stays at her kindy from Monday to Friday. Bing-Bing sleeps for about 11-12 hours at night, which effectively means that we have just about 3 hours left to directly interact with our daughter on a daily basis. I am always curious about what Bing-Bing does at school, and one of my biggest wishes was to become invisible to watch Bing-Bing play and learn without distracting her. While waiting for my wish to come true, Alex and I usually spent time catching up with Bing-Bing’s teachers, and their stories as well as observations have made us smile every time. In this entry, let me start by telling my favorite stories first.

#1 – A lovely SMS

Bing-Bing is the smallest toddler at her (new) kindy and she had her first class exactly a day after her second birthday. We were so worried on that day that Bing-Bing would not settle in well. Before lunch, we received a short SMS with a photo attached, saying “Margaret is having a good time matching all the boxes. Don’t worry too much” from her teacher. Since our first transition visit, I always had an intuition that Bing-Bing would like her new kindy and that timely and thoughtful SMS simply made my day. Every now and then I still texted Bing-Bing's teacher to see what my Bing-Bing was up to.

#2 – Show n Tell

Friday morning was the time for “Show and Tell” at Bing-Bing’s kindy and the kids took turn to present anything they wanted to their friends. For example, a little girl was really excited about her first flight, so her parents printed out her ticket and she proudly presented it. A boy even showed his caterpillar and explained how it evolved to be a butterfly (I don’t like this caterpillar part very much but strangely enough, the kids do). We often asked Bing-Bing what she would like to ‘show and tell’ and helped her prepare accordingly. More importantly, we were always keen to know how it went from her teachers.

During the first few weeks, Bing-Bing was shy standing in front a big crowd (evidenced by the fact that she either put her finger or even her whole hand into her mouth), but she was more confident sharing her stories with a smaller audience. Well, I guess that's normal. Public speaking was the number one fear even in America (drowning only made top 4), let alone Bing-Bing was only two years old. All we need is just a little patience together with a lot of practice.

Last week, Bing-Bing wanted to tell her friends about her handmade butterfly and dragonfly. When we arrived at 5PM, Mona greeted us with a warm smile and instantly told us about Bing-Bing’s “Show and Tell”: 

Mona: Margaret was much more confident presenting her "show and tell" this morning and she put no finger into her mouth.

Alan: Oh wow, well done Margaret

Mona: We still needed to ask her questions but she managed to answer all of them with good sentences. A girl even asked Margaret “Why are you showing us these?” and she answered “I made it with my Daddy and Mommy”

Alan:  Even nailed the Q&A session!

Practice makes Perfect. I often played the game "Opposites" with Bing-Bing and encouraged her to be Confident, not Shy. In his book "Outliers", M Gladwell suggested that it should take 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. We would continue to work on this, for sure. 

#3 – Margaret’s table

Bing-Bing was sick and she stayed at home with us for two days. I wondered whether the kids at school realized that she was away and whether they missed their little friend Margaret at all. Alex was kind enough to voice up my little concern to a teacher.

Alex: We just wonder whether the kids realized that Margaret was away. Alan had this question on our way here.

Mona: Yes, they did. They kept asking where Margaret was. During lunch, everyone realized that Margaret's seat was vacant and they'd like to keep it vacant the whole time.

Alan: Oh where is her seat?

Mona: It’s right here. We set her on this small table with two other children, so she can be less chatty and focus on her lunch. In the large table, she just chats away.

My interpretation of all this was that my little girl is pretty popular and chatty at school. More importantly, this was a good sign that Bing-Bing could socialize and communicate with other toddlers (who were 1 to 3 years older than her). 

 

#4 – "I am a big girl"

When I said Bing-Bing was the smallest baby in her class, that's not entirely true. Actually, that honor should go to Pablo, a 8-month old baby with big blue eyes and the second cutest smile. His mother was the Assistant Manager of the kindy and she brought Pablo to her work everyday. It just happened that Pablo had an Avent milk bottle that looked exactly the same as the one we brought for Bing-Bing. She usually drinks from a cup already, most of the time, she only uses her non-spill bottle in the car.

One morning Bing didn't finish her milk bottle in the car so she carried around when she got to school. And this conversation happened…
 

Matilda (4 years old): Margaret, why do you hold Pablo’s bottle?

Bing-Bing: It’s mine.

Matilda (a bit confused): So are you a baby?

Bing-Bing (in her serious face): No no Bing Bing is not a baby. I am a big girl. Big girl!

As per the teacher, Bing-Bing then repeated her sentence “I am a big girl” for about ten minutes and insisted to drink milk from a cup to make her point. She now refused to drink from her bottle at home or in the car. This little girl is, to quote Alex, “quite a character”…

For years, researchers have tried to explain whether a person is born with personalities or whether the world around us shaped who we are. Well, the debate is still going on out there but I myself chose the easy answer – Both. I still wish to be invisible to watch Bing-Bing in action at school, to know more about that part of the world that is shaping her.

AP

Month 28: Just a Sunday afternoon

It was a fine Sunday afternoon. 3:30pm and Alan was already at his usual badminton games. I decided to watch a movie while Bing Bing was still having her afternoon nap. Then I heard the familiar noise that her bedroom door made when it was opened. By the time I opened my bedroom door, here was Bing Bing running across the corridor at lightning speed. She was too short to look over our bed through all those pillows and blankets so she had her eyes fully opened - they were as large and big as longan stones. She turned around and spoke in her clearest voice:

"Is Daddy sleeping on the bed now Mommy? Daddy is sleeping on the bed?"

"Ba đi chơi cầu lông rồi Bing ạ. Chơi cầu lông đó con biết không? Như thế này này." - I tried to explain to her with some awkward badminton imitation.

"Oh, Daddy be home soon Mommy? Daddy be home now?" - Her eyes got bigger and blacker as she tried to raise her eyebrows.

"Ba sẽ về sớm thôi, giờ có 2 mẹ con mình ở nhà thôi"

"Ba đi cầu lông... Pew pew... haha... Daddy home soon Mommy."

"That's right. You want some ice-cream?"

She was finally satisfied with that and happy went downstairs with me to have some ice-cream. She was only allowed to have ice-cream every Sunday afternoon after her lunch nap and she could eat as much as she liked.

To have some fun and to make sure that she has a safe way going down the stairs given how small she was and how short her legs are, I often went first - down the flight of stairs using not my adult legs but my bottom. She went after, she laughed every time I banged my butt on each stair but she asked "Are you alright Mommy?" every time I landed hard on my bottom. She did the same thing, we had fun and she had never fell off the stairs. Of course, at the last one, she counted "1, 2, 3 Jump!" and jumped off the last step with a big laugh.

After having so much ice-cream, she held her cheeks up and said

"So cold Mommy...".

I laughed out loud. She laughed after me and I asked

"Why are you laughing Bing Bing?".

I thought she would just ignore my difficult question (for her age) but she replied

"Bing Bing is so funny".

It was playtime. She had a wide range of choices. She picked building blocks. They were new toys I bought for her and she absolutely loved it. While I was trying to follow the instruction booklet to build a shrimp, she was already on her mission to build what she called "My Tara Tree". She built one, then two. I needed one particular yellow piece that she was using so I politely asked:

"Bing cho mẹ mượn cái này nhé." - Thought she would.

"Erm... no, I need this. Sorry Mommy" - I WAS surprised. But I was glad. When Bing Bing and her kindy friends were playing along side with one another, I used to teach Bing Bing that it was important to share toys but only after you have finished playing with that toy. It would not be a healthy friendship if one can just take things from you and say you have to share. And same thing for Bing Bing, she learned to wait for her turn to use toys.

I showed her my beautiful shrimp.

"Wow, well done Mommy. It's so cool". - Smiling as she spoke

I was surprised again. "Since when did you have such great people skills Bing Bing?". I wasn't very good at that. It was really special to see that I could even teach her something I didn't have myself.

I screamed on top of my lung. Alan appeared out of nowhere behind us without making a single sound as we were attentively watching Frozen "Let it go" song. I thought somebody broke in our house and suddenly appeared in front of us with a knife. Thankfully it was just Alan. Bing Bing heard me scream. She was surely calm, certainly calmer than her mother. She gave me a hug and said "Mommy is scared Daddy". She gave me a kiss on the lips and held my face up. For a second I felt like she was an eleven year old daughter that I could count on.

We went to the supermarket after that and that was my 2 hours with Bing Bing on a Sunday afternoon. She has grown so much since her second birthday. I now have a better idea of who Bing Bing is and who this young girl that she is capable of becoming.


Alex

Month 27: The wonder of Verbal Communication

Babies communicated with us by crying with various tones during their first 18 months. As parents, we could pretty much tell from the moment Bing Bing was born why she was crying based on her tones. I would say we got it right 98% of the time. After Bing Bing turned two, she managed to communicate in three languages – i.e. English, Vietnamese and Binglish (I haven’t been able to fully understand the last one of course), and this made our daily interaction much more fun and effective.

Her sentences in Vietnamese were fairly short with the subjects and verbs mixed up sometimes but I believed that she understood every single word we said. This morning, Bing Bing rode her bicycle (bikie in her dictionary) in the backyard and told Alex "Train sợ lắm Bing Bing" as she heard the train from a far or "Bỏ mẹ váy ra Bing Bing" when she meant "Mẹ bỏ váy ra cho Bing Bing ". Before lunch, Bing Bing kept telling us “Đi ăn đi thôi” because she was hungry. The longest sentence in Vietnamese that I heard so far in June had seven words - “Bing Bing mặc váy màu xanh lá”.

It is said that by the age of two, a child will have a vocabulary of about two hundred words. Bing Bing surprised us all the time with her English vocabulary (to be honest, I cannot tell how many words she actually knows now as she keeps enriching her vocabulary on a daily basis). Some of the examples in which she either suggested or initiated things to do with Mommy:

“BB: Do you want painting Mommy?

Alex: Yes, honey

BB: (loudly and clearly) Daddy, Mommy wants painting too. Let’s go”

Or similarly:

“BB: Mommy, do you want nước dừa?

Alex: Yes

BB: Daddy, Mommy wants nước dừa, too.

Alan: You think so?

BB: Yes, I think so”

Or with Jordan, her unisex doll (sometimes she referred to Jordan as a boy, some other times as a girl): 

"BB: Jordan, do you want to read a book yeah yeah?

Jordan (acts cool)...

BB: Oh Jordan, put your shoes on. Lạnh lắm. Your feet are cold"

Jordan obviously didn't have much say in this situation as Bing Bing was already on her mission with his shoes. 

BB: Jordan, sit here. I am reading a book."

Bing Bing had a particular interest in "opposites". We were queuing at the counter to check out our shopping basket. Out of nowhere Bing Bing pointed to a person queuing in front us who was smiling warmly at her and said "This is an OLD MAN! Bing Bing is a young girl." Of course she told the truth. That old man she referred to just had to pretend that nobody heard her.

She would say this type of sentences on a very regular basis.

"It's hot Mommy. It's not cold.

This is big Mommy. This is small.

Daddy cao. Bing Bing lùn.

Nặng quá! Too light"

Bing Bing is a kind of child who knows exactly what she wants. Hence, being able to have verbal conversations with her means less guesswork for us. Bing Bing had an unexplained high fever last night and when I was holding her, she whispered "Daddy, I am really thirsty. I want nước dừa". I didn't realize that she knew such words "really thirsty". Anyway, we quickly went downstairs for two cups of "nước dừa" to cool her down (plus a bonus spoon of pamol from Daddy). 

There was another conversation with Alex before bedtime when Alex was trying to trim Bing Bing's nails. As Bing Bing always wanted to have the final say and final "do" (which I will talk about later), Alex often gave Bing Bing an opportunity to pull her nearly-trimmed-off nails out. One day, a toe nail got rather stubborn and Alex said:

"- It's not coming out honey, let me help...

- No Mommy, it is coming out. It IS coming out. See, it's coming Mommy. Look, it's coming out.It's coming Mommy" Bing Bing said so while she was eagerly pulling out that toe nail with her tiny hands. Each sentence had a completely different tone to it but lining upwards like a staircase to show her determination to pull it out.

What's best about verbal communication was that Bing Bing could express herself easily, emotionally in particular. It just showed us how much she cared and how beautiful her emotions were.

After reading way too many books as usual, Bing Bing said:
"Daddy, I am tired. I don't want to sleep now. I want painting. Do you like painting too Mommy?" 

Or when Alex was laminating pictures, Bing Bing said 
"It is really hot Mommy, are you alright?"

Bing Bing was doing a puzzle on her table when she heard Alex chopping chicken loudly in the kitchen:
"Be careful Mommy, are you alright?"

What's really interesting to us was that while her English often outperformed her Vietnamese in most vocabs, only one topic that seemed to be different. Bing Bing was about 19 months when she said:

"Bing Bing yêu mẹ lắm lắm. Bing Bing yêu ba lắm lắm." 

while she made no attempts to say the same word in English. 

By about 25 months Bing had learned to say "I love you Mommy" when Alex was saying good night and "I love you Daddy" when I was preparing her a sweet potato for breakfast. But she said this in Vietnamese to Alex every morning before we dropped her off at school:

"Bing Bing yêu mẹ lắm lắm, nhiều như trời cao biển cả."

That suggests the word love/ yêu and this topic in particular is not so popular at school like "crackers", it is only heard at home and said by parents. 

Learning a single language is hard. Learning two is even crazier. We adults just simply expect the child to automatically develop her language skills as she grows up. However, it takes a million neurons to be able to understand and speak a word, and that connection is what wires their brains permanently. It has been a long way for Bing Bing from non-verbal communication to all-verbal communication. It has been a great journey for Alex and I to experience what a difficult path that a child must take when they first come to the world. Now that most people can understand Bing Bing's verbal languages, Alex and I do sometimes miss the hardship but pride when we were the only people who understood Bing Bing's non-verbal communications. We have great confidence that she will be fluent in at least two - three languages in no time. 

Alan