Sze Yi's 3.5 Year Updates

Sze Yi with her many expressions while eating the strawberry

It's been a while since I last updated Sze Yi's progress. In fact, I think I only wrote about it once. It's hard to keep track, as she's now 3.5 year old already. But I'll try to keep a record here for her reference later.

Height: ~97cm

Weight: 14.9kg

Teeth:
20 full milk teeth, no fillings yet (she's been to a dental checkup just this morning, the dentist said it's great! But she didn't dare sit on the chair, the dentist had to check her teeth with Daddy carrying her!)


Feeding:
- She could now eat on her own.
- She has been introduced to a variety of food, including fast food and junk food (sweets, etc.). She is no longer allergic to eggs now (she used to last time).
- She still drinks a lot of milk, at least 3 times a day, normally more than that. I have been mixing breastmilk into her formula when Sze Juin was born, until my gynae told me that it could cause dehydration if the composition is not correct. Ever since then, I slowly trained her to take purely breastmilk since I have excess. Intially, she didn't want. But now, she took (I've been making a lot of changes to the way I stored my milk. Initially I gave her fresh ones, and slowly changed that to frozen milk). When I have more supply, I actually breastfeed both of them fully, which lasted for a few months - maybe close to half a year, I can't really remember. Now, she's 1-2 times on breastmilk - about 5oz each time. If formula, she'll take 7oz.
- She loves to eat medicine, especially paracetamol. Even if she's not sick, she would say that she's sick and need to eat paracetamol. So, it's not really hard to feed her medicine when she's sick :)


Motor Skills:
- Able to ride bicycle and manouvre it quite well
- She could dance really well, remembering all the steps and follow the tempo correctly
- Can run really fast now and climb things with narrow steps (just like a sticks, no base at all) on her own.


Vocabulary:
- I couldn't keep track of her vocabulary as it's grown really fast in such a short time. But I still remembered how touched I was when I first heard her say:
i. Good job Mommy -> when she's ~26 months
ii. I love you Mommy -> when she's around ~27 months
iii. Good night, Mommy. Sweet dream. I love you -> just recently (as how I normally said to her)
- She could sing a lot of songs by now. Her recently learnt ones include Red River Valley, 好妈妈 (not sure the exact name of this song, but she kept singing this when Mother's Day was approaching last month), 三字经 (she could memorize up to the 2nd paragraph, beating me coz I'm still at the 1st paragraph), etc. She also could recite poems like 1,2,3,4,5, Once I caught a fish alive, Hey, Diddle Diddle, etc..

- She's very good in memorizing. Before she started reading, she could memorize the whole book (which I couldn't even remember what would come next, but she could). She had memorized more than 2 books:-
i. Numbers -> when she was ~29 months
ii. Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See? -> when she's around 31 months
iii. Peter & Jane series -> when she's at FingerTips

- She even taught Sze Juin how to read when she was just born, but now that she started to recognise the letters, I could see that she couldn't really remember what would come next but need to read first - yes, on the same book which she'd memorized last time.

- She could now read storybooks. In fact, she showed very great interest in reading nowadays. But she could read and read the same book again and again, without feeling bored. Besides P&J series which was her favourite (I didn't even know FingerTips started her on that, I only realized it when I took her to the bookstore and showed this series to hubby - she started reading the whole book much to our surprises!). She could read up to Level 5 on her own now. I suspect that she's still partially memorizing them, although no doubt she could recognise and spell more words now.

- She could memorize our telephone numbers, spell her name and a few other words.

- The only thing that worry me now is that her speech is not clear. For K sounds, it'll come out as F. Example, Cry Cry, become Fai Fai. But I couldn't comprehend why she could pronounce Car perfectly well. She also couldn't really pronounce Rrrr (Sze Juin is much better than her in this!). But she could speak and understand English, Mandarin and Hokkien.


Others:
- She was fully potty trained when she was 2 year plus. Occasionally, she would wet the bed when she didn't feel secured, especially after we've scolded her. But overall, she could adapt really well in public toilets and also outside if we can't find a public toilet.
- She was weaned off the pacifier when she was 38months. ~2 months later, she also doesn't rely to her boh boh (pillow) to sleep already.
- Her writings - very much improved after she changed school. But, I think it's still not so nice :) She had mastered the numbers rather well (1-10), but the alphabets she still need the dotted lines to guide her. She's improving now, but still not very nice when she writes on her own.
- Colouring skills - acceptable, but still not very neat yet.
- Puzzles - she can piece them up for the easy ones. Those that are more complicated, she'll need help.
- Bricks - she's very into building bricks now. She'll build chair, tall tall buildings, potty, table, etc. - She could play on her own now, wouldn't need full attention from us anymore.
- It's hard to believe her at times, because her imagination will run wild. Some of the things that she said, it's not always true, although it's partially true. She loves to 'tembak' if she didn't know the answer. Maybe that's why there are variations to her stories.
- She could wear her clothes (which includes blouse, pants, socks, shoes) on her own, although she still need help on the more difficult ones.
- She could brush her teeth on her own, although she wouldn't want to do it alone normally.
- She's starting to learn how to bathe on her own. She started to slowly let others (except me!) to wash her hair the normal way. I still have to use the baby way with her.
- She's not so afraid of playing in the pool now. At least when we suggested to go for a swim, she happily agreed.
- She could understand logic rather well - she would request that I go back first that day so that we could all sit in daddy's car tomorrow (our car parks were back to back instead of side by side), looking at Daddy's shoes to tell if he's home already (especially after she followed me to fetch Sze Juin from the babysitter, and when she returned home she still can't see Daddy's working shoes, so she'll know that Daddy's not back yet), looking at the lifts display to see which lift would reach us first, etc.
- She's a great sister. She took great care of Sze Juin. Honestly, when she's smaller, I was afraid to leave them alone. Now, I could ask her to take care of Mei Mei while I do some houseworks. She won't let her sister eat things she shouldn't (even though she herself fed her cocoa crunch when Sze Juin was ~5 months old!).
- She's great with manners - Please, Thank You, You're welcome, I'm sorry, May I?, Excuse Me, etc.
- She's rather cho lor - she loves to shout very loudly and acts like a boy, climb high and low, and play rough.
- She cries easily nowadays especially if she didn't get her way (last time, she hardly cried even if in pain like after a jab).
- She is brave enough to see the doctor now, no more crying and would co-operate with him.

That's all that I could remember for now. My little girl is definitely growing up!