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TBD is four years + six months old. Halloween is finally upon us, winding up months of anticipation.
Achievements unlocked the last two months: playing Uno, flipping pancakes, frying fried rice, cooking noodle soup from a cookbook (with reading and other adult assistance), activity books. (Surely more? —but that’s all I wrote down.) And while these are not new achievements, TBD has hiked 1+ mile and tent-camped a couple more times, and wants to do both more.
More and more, this is a small person with their own identity, able to hold their own life in the world. As the achievements list suggests, it’s difficult to qualify this with anecdata. One big standout is the ability to, without warm-up, run off and play with a friend as soon as they meet—and stay away playing for a while (except when grown-up mediation is wanted for a fairness/sharing issue). So this report feels rather scattershot.
The evening after TBD was subjected I mean introduced to “The Song That Does Not End,” we were earnestly informed that actually you can stop singing it at any time.
As of last month, while writing words, the order of letters was somewhat scattershot, and at times had a predominance of right-to-left. As of now, left-to-right has taken over as standard. Letter forms have stabilized to standard, though those in $realname are the least wobbly, being the most practiced. Some letters are often backwards (S most obviously), but this is of course developmentally-appropriate and should eventually clear up. What’s most notable this week is how diagonal lines are now almost on target and TBD is making specific efforts to write all letters the same size, as a way of controlling their form.
Also, we’re getting better at identifying the first letter of English words by the sound. After that, the sounds get “mushy” and harder to pick out.
In Chinese, TBD is easily outstripping us conversationally, and has started correcting our pronunciation (with our encouragement). Their time on stage at a local folkways festival made it clear they are more fluent in Chinese in Chinese-coded-contexts than at home.* (Also, we've been asked not to mention at preschool that they speak Chinese.) Random counting-for-practice is now done in Mandarin (30 is the current hard-to-remember one), and sometimes when enumerating things China-related, Mandarin numbers are consciously used.** Code-switching in action. Random songs are equally likely to be either language.
People are typically drawn as faces with large round eyes, arms, and legs, sometimes with a body. Sometimes the arms have circle hands+radiating spike fingers. That said, there’s been far less drawing and more writing this month than last. Working REALLY hard on the writing right now.
And the talking, talking:
(two bedtime stories told during play to help fire trucks fall asleep; quotes not exact)
“Once upon a time there was a bad guy that destroyed the city. A superhero came and stopped him. The end.”
(then)
“Once upon a time there was a monster. Some superheroes came, but they couldn’t stop him because the monster was too strong. The end.”
(told to me as a bedtime story)
“Once upon a time there was a little guy who wanted to be a superhero and fight the bad guys, but he couldn’t because he was a little guy. So he trained and worked hard and ate lots of veggies, and he grew strong and got a costume, and then he was Captain America. The end. And he fought the bad guys. The end.”
Me: “So when does Spider-man go back to being Peter Parker?”
TBD: “He doesn’t because he’s a car.”
(specifically, a Spider-man Hot Wheels)
Child on playground: “Do you want to be friends?”
TBD: “I don’t know.”
“I don’t mean say `Poop’ but my brain keeps telling me to.”
“For trick-or-treat, if a grown-up gets the candy for you, that’s cheating.”
“Actually, guess what—”
(how changes to the rules of the current game are announced)
(during bedtime)
TBD: “Tell me the lying story.”
Me: “The boy who cried wolf?”
“Mm-hmm.” (falls asleep before the wolf comes)
(after asking Janni how to say something in Mandarin)
“Your accent is ... different.”
TBD: “Knock knock.”
Me: “Who’s there?”
“Yoghurt.”
“Yoghurt who?”
“A yoghurt poopie. I mean, a yoghurt person.”
(first known telling of a knock-knock joke)
Wait, that's another achievement unlocked, isn't it. Add it to the list!
* I am reminded of how, at exactly their current age, I was equally fluent in English and Japanese, but couldn't translate between them.
** I should clarify: for the language, I use Mandarin and Chinese interchangeably. It is not my intent to deny the other Chinese languages—it’s as much to avoid repetition as anything.
---L.
Subject quote from "Momentum," Vienna Teng.
Achievements unlocked the last two months: playing Uno, flipping pancakes, frying fried rice, cooking noodle soup from a cookbook (with reading and other adult assistance), activity books. (Surely more? —but that’s all I wrote down.) And while these are not new achievements, TBD has hiked 1+ mile and tent-camped a couple more times, and wants to do both more.
More and more, this is a small person with their own identity, able to hold their own life in the world. As the achievements list suggests, it’s difficult to qualify this with anecdata. One big standout is the ability to, without warm-up, run off and play with a friend as soon as they meet—and stay away playing for a while (except when grown-up mediation is wanted for a fairness/sharing issue). So this report feels rather scattershot.
The evening after TBD was subjected I mean introduced to “The Song That Does Not End,” we were earnestly informed that actually you can stop singing it at any time.
As of last month, while writing words, the order of letters was somewhat scattershot, and at times had a predominance of right-to-left. As of now, left-to-right has taken over as standard. Letter forms have stabilized to standard, though those in $realname are the least wobbly, being the most practiced. Some letters are often backwards (S most obviously), but this is of course developmentally-appropriate and should eventually clear up. What’s most notable this week is how diagonal lines are now almost on target and TBD is making specific efforts to write all letters the same size, as a way of controlling their form.
Also, we’re getting better at identifying the first letter of English words by the sound. After that, the sounds get “mushy” and harder to pick out.
In Chinese, TBD is easily outstripping us conversationally, and has started correcting our pronunciation (with our encouragement). Their time on stage at a local folkways festival made it clear they are more fluent in Chinese in Chinese-coded-contexts than at home.* (Also, we've been asked not to mention at preschool that they speak Chinese.) Random counting-for-practice is now done in Mandarin (30 is the current hard-to-remember one), and sometimes when enumerating things China-related, Mandarin numbers are consciously used.** Code-switching in action. Random songs are equally likely to be either language.
People are typically drawn as faces with large round eyes, arms, and legs, sometimes with a body. Sometimes the arms have circle hands+radiating spike fingers. That said, there’s been far less drawing and more writing this month than last. Working REALLY hard on the writing right now.
And the talking, talking:
(two bedtime stories told during play to help fire trucks fall asleep; quotes not exact)
“Once upon a time there was a bad guy that destroyed the city. A superhero came and stopped him. The end.”
(then)
“Once upon a time there was a monster. Some superheroes came, but they couldn’t stop him because the monster was too strong. The end.”
(told to me as a bedtime story)
“Once upon a time there was a little guy who wanted to be a superhero and fight the bad guys, but he couldn’t because he was a little guy. So he trained and worked hard and ate lots of veggies, and he grew strong and got a costume, and then he was Captain America. The end. And he fought the bad guys. The end.”
Me: “So when does Spider-man go back to being Peter Parker?”
TBD: “He doesn’t because he’s a car.”
(specifically, a Spider-man Hot Wheels)
Child on playground: “Do you want to be friends?”
TBD: “I don’t know.”
“I don’t mean say `Poop’ but my brain keeps telling me to.”
“For trick-or-treat, if a grown-up gets the candy for you, that’s cheating.”
“Actually, guess what—”
(how changes to the rules of the current game are announced)
(during bedtime)
TBD: “Tell me the lying story.”
Me: “The boy who cried wolf?”
“Mm-hmm.” (falls asleep before the wolf comes)
(after asking Janni how to say something in Mandarin)
“Your accent is ... different.”
TBD: “Knock knock.”
Me: “Who’s there?”
“Yoghurt.”
“Yoghurt who?”
“A yoghurt poopie. I mean, a yoghurt person.”
(first known telling of a knock-knock joke)
Wait, that's another achievement unlocked, isn't it. Add it to the list!
* I am reminded of how, at exactly their current age, I was equally fluent in English and Japanese, but couldn't translate between them.
** I should clarify: for the language, I use Mandarin and Chinese interchangeably. It is not my intent to deny the other Chinese languages—it’s as much to avoid repetition as anything.
---L.
Subject quote from "Momentum," Vienna Teng.