We are 10 days away from Bing Bing’s 3rd
birthday. Alex told me the other day that there was some interesting tennis class
for toddlers which should be quite fun. After some discussion, we decided that
she would not learn something too specific at this stage of development.
Instead, we would like to expose Bing to as many fun activities as possible, so
that she could continue to experience new things and gradually form her own interests and
tastes.
Music
Bing Bing listened to various artists, e.g. Adele, Alicia
Keys, Taylor Swift, and Michael Jackson to name a few. Adele was her favorite artist at the moment. Besides, she especially liked
songs with strong beat as she could either dance along or “shake it off”. Of
course, it was still too early for Bing Bing to fully understand all the lyrics.
However, I was amazed to see that she could feel the emotions expressed in the
songs. One day she was listening to “Someone like you” by Adele and she told me
“Daddy, Adele is a bit upset”. We also bought music CDs in different languages
for Bing Bing. She listened to her Spanish CD so often that she actually
remembered the lyrics and rhythm. One day we were in the car and there was an
Italian song playing on the radio. Bing Bing listened intensely and then
queried “I don’t understand this song. It is not Spanish”.
Dance
Bing Bing surely had some happy feet. She could either dance
or jump around non-stop whenever her favorite music was on. However, it should
be noted that, like driving, she danced to the conditions (of the floor). During
Christmas, we went to a colleague’s house and all the kids danced happily,
except my little one. Erm, this was not usual at all – so I asked her “You are
not dancing honey. What’s happening?”. Bing Bing looked at me blankly and said
“It’s not soft Daddy”. Oh yeah, now
it made sense. Bing Bing only loved to
dance and roll on the premium carpet floor that was installed at our new home
right before Christmas. The carpet she was standing on at that time was no
match for ours J.
Sports
I quite like a quote about passion “Passion comes from a
special fit between an activity and a person. You can't force that fit; it has
to be found”. This was especially true in sports and Bing Bing was allowed to
explore multiple types of sports on her own. Recently, I joined another
badminton club in North Shore and they played from 7pm to 10pm every Saturday. We
had brought Bing Bing along twice so that she could watch the games and play
with my spare racquet. She had great fun playing outside the courts and
quickly caught up with the rules. Bing Bing explained to Alex “When the bell
rings, all the children (FYI - she meant my club members) stop playing Mommy”. I
loved it even more when she spoke to me in Vietnamese the next day “Ba oi, ba
huong dan Bing Bing choi cau long nhe” (i.e. Daddy, can you please teach me how
to play badminton?”). Two weeks ago, Alex found a kids’ martial art class for
Bing Bing, in which they taught Choi Kwang Do. This school of martial art was more flexible than Taekwondo and the teacher told Bing Bing and her classmates on the first day that "Remember, the only place that you can fight is within this class". Bing Bing talked about martial
art all day now and she kept stressing the point that “Daddy, it’s not fighting
OK”. We planned to bring Bing Bing to Alex's table tennis club soon so that she could experience another game.
Food
Bing Bing’s default answer to any sort of new food is “No I
don’t want it”, combined with multiple head-shaking. That was why we needed to
eagerly encourage her to try new stuff every time. “Please try it first honey”
– said Alex, “You can always spit it out if you really don’t like it. But you
need to try”. That worked well for us, and I realized that Bing Bing rarely
spat anything out after trying. We went to the zoo quite often and some animal
stories were quite helpful when it came to food. Bing Bing’s favourite zoo
animals were Buma the Elephant, giraffe, seal and tiger/ cheetah. I often
reminded her about the tiger “Do you know why the tiger is strong Bing Bing?
Because it eats a lot of meat” when I wanted her to have some more protein.
About Teeda…
It took me quite a while to come up with the name Bing Bing
when Alex was pregnant back in 2013. This time, I asked Bing Bing to name her
little brother/sister and she instantly came up with the name of Teeda. We went
for a 20-week pregnancy scan this morning and the doctor told that everything
was beautifully normal. She also confirmed that Teeda would be a little boy and
this part of the story actually made me a bit nervous. I would need to read
more and learn how to raise a son now. The way Teeda kicked Mom’s belly was
totally different from that of Bing Bing – and I assumed that was a hint
about his personality being different from Bing Bing's. Bing Bing went in the scan room with me and she was
really excited to see Teeda moving on the screen. However, Bing Bing had always
said she wanted Teeda to be a girl and her denial mode was on even after the
doctor had already confirmed otherwise. Bing Bing took a profile picture of
Teeda for her “Show and Tell” today; and she told her dear teacher Andrea that
“Teeda is a girl. But I want a brother and a sister”.
I cannot wait to celebrate Bing Bing's 3rd birthday. She's grown so much during the past year and we are so looking forward to the next.
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