What's her height now?
At Bing Bing’s kindergarten, there was a height measure in the
shape of a funny giraffe. Last week, I asked Bing Bing to stand against the
giraffe and assumed that she might be in the zone of 92-93 cm. Turned out to be
98 cm. With no shoes and double confirmed by her teacher!
Into Science Now...
When it came to learning, we realized that there should be
no limit to Bing Bing's thirst for knowledge. Earthquake, dinosaur, stethoscope
were some of her favorite topics recently and she was so eager to learn more
and more about those seemingly sophisticated subjects. Alex recently showed
Bing Bing some BBC documentary on dinosaur during one of their "movie
nights", i.e. those Friday nights that I was out to play badminton. What
impressed us most was the fact that Bing Bing tried to remember all the names
of the dinosaurs, e.g. T-Rex, Apatosaurus. She figured out the key difference
between these dinosaurs and clearly termed it as "having sharp
teeth". Those dinosaurs which had sharp teeth should eat meat, while those
without sharp teeth like "long-neck, they just ate leaf, Daddy".
Thanks to the likes of elephant and 'long-neck', I could now encourage Bing
Bing to have more green vegetables at dinner by reminding her of her favorite
animals. I would be like "Bing Bing, you should have some vegetable just
like the long-neck", and Bing Bing would concur in Vietnamese "Bing
Bing ăn rau Bing không đau đít". Very outcome driven indeed :).
20,110! This is not a random number. It is in fact the
number of earthquakes that happened in New Zealand last year (GeoNet). Learning
about earthquake should be necessary and we were happy to see Bing Bing pick
this up so quickly. She remembered all the required actions and was eager to
demonstrate them at any point of time. If Bing Bing was sitting on the sofa,
and we made some fake earthquake sound, she would dive into the floor and
covered her head. And if asked "What else would you do Bing Bing?",
she would answer with an unmistakable Kiwi accent "I'll run outside".
In Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers book, he told a story about a
mother telling her son to ask the doctor anything he needed to know during the
appointment. I kinda liked the idea and encouraged Bing Bing to do the same
with her GP. She was always comfortable interacting with her GP and never ever
cried. One GP used to tell Bing Bing that she wished all her patients were
(good) like Bing Bing. At home, Bing Bing loved to role-play as a doctor and
examined all her toys (including me of course) using her own stethoscope. Her
current kit was a cute little stethoscope which could help you hear actual
heartbeat and a small blue box with all the wooden devices. I loved to
(pretend) to be one of her patients as I could actually feel my daughter's
loving care when she held my hand, checked my temperature and wrote me a
prescription.
And language
We maintained a bi-lingual environment at home and Bing Bing
could switch instantly between English and Vietnamese. The other day Alex was
telling her "Bing Bing, you need to sit down while eating". Bing Bing
replied instantly in Vietnamese "Mẹ ơi nói tiếng Việt đi, không nói tiếng Anh", and her mum was stunned for like a second while I had a good laugh.
We found out that Bing Bing sometimes introduced herself using her full
Vietnamese name of Phạm Tú Mỹ Anh at kindie. She told us that her friends
didn't understand that and they were like "What? What are you talking
about?". Besides non-stop speaking, she sang all the time - in the car, in
the bathroom, before going to bed, even on the bed. Her current favorite songs
were "For the first time in forever" and "Three hot buns",
yet she kinda wrote her own lyrics for the songs.
And more independent
We recently sold our townhouse and moved some of our
favorite furniture to our new place, which included a little white bed for Bing
Bing. FYI - She had been sleeping on her mattress for more than a year so that
she would not fall off to the floor. And now for the white bed, it was
definitely love at first sight. Bing Bing kept rolling on her new bed and
screamed "I love my new bed, I love my new bed". Then all of a
sudden, she raised her independence to a new level after her third birthday.
She decided to dress herself, brushed her teeth properly on her own even though she started doing that by herself about a year ago and now she started using
her own lipstick(!). It was not "lipstick" lipstick, but some lip balm
with a sweet smell of cranberry & raspberry from Nivea to be exact.
Bing Bing held her "lipstick" even during her sleep. She even brought
it to one of her "Show and Tell" sessions and conveyed such a clear
message to her friends "This is my lipstick. It is for girls, not for
boys". One of the children inquired curiously "Why do you use
lipstick Margaret?" and Bing Bing gave a cannot-be-clearer explanation of
"Because I like it".
And for Teeda...
Bing Bing went to the doctor with us to see Teeda every
time. She already knew that Teeda would be her brother yet she kept requesting
for another little sister. Bing Bing promised to feed Teeda and change his
nappy if necessary. Sometimes, she gently touched Alex's belly and asked Tee
what he was up to punching and kicking mommy's belly button. I can't wait to
see Teeda and I hope he would be as cute as his Big Sister. Alex tended to be more
specific as she wanted his eyes to not look like mine :).
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