Mama: It’s not good to drink a lot of cola.
Xuanie: Just drink a little bit
Mama: Yes, just a little is okay.
Xuanie: But if we add lots of water, we can drink a lot of cola.
Told this to the dad, and he laughs, saying what a little “idiot” our son is.
But this is similar to how kids under/around 3 years of age believes that a pizza cut into 10 pieces means more pizza to eat than one cut into just 5 pieces. Piagetian theories about conservation.
Xuanie watched Ratatouille, the Disney cartoon. At the scene when Remy the rat is looking out to a scene with the Eiffel Tower and the lights of Paris, Xuanie exclaims that “It’s beautiful (好漂亮)!” Then he told he me wanted to go there, that I should bring him there.
A couple of weeks later, he chanced upon a guidebook of the London Eye that we have in the house, and he saw sights of London beyond the Thames. Again, he said “It’s beautiful!” and that I should bring him there. He said that scene is like that one in Ratatouille.
So I asked him which one he prefers, and he said, “London.”
Xuanie 想妈妈. That’s what Xuanie says to me every time I pick him up from nursery school. How sweet, down to my heart. I miss Xuanie too, every second that he’s away from me and that’s true.
“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”
Saw this quote on a Facebook friend’s status a while ago. There are many different sources that this quote have been attributed to. Who said it first is not so important, at least not for me.
I don’t dare to count myself as having much success by most standards. I got some things I wanted (like traveling to so many places that many new places simply cease to impress me anymore). As for “wanting what I get,” I think I can say I have some things in my life right now that I am deeply, deeply grateful to God for.
Xuanie is definitely a big portion of that part of my life. When I look at him, when I watch him, when I interact with him . . . my heart is just filled with gratitude that God granted me such a BIG little one as a present. Right from the first hours since he was born, I am totally in love and gratitude.
I hope this bit of information will be a source of strength for Xuanie, sometime in the future. For he is loved, and cherished. And he brings much happiness to mama.
Xuanie has absolutely no understanding that sounds can be orthographically represented. So, while he’s able to count from 1 to 10, he simply fails to recognize the numbers “1, 2, 3 ….” when graphically represented. He has even learned from a Chinese program that “1″ is a “pencil,” “2″ is a “duck” etc., and could recite it, but when tested, he can’t tell “1″ from “2″ or any other numbers. Of course, he does not know his A, B, Cs.
He’s among the youngest in his class. Only 3 others, out of 29, are younger than he is. I know one of his classmates, a Chinese boy, knows his 1 to 20, and A to Z, plus all the names of the planets. In comparison, X. really seems like a retard ….
My consolation is that he seems to possess great kinetic intelligence. He’s able to tackle all the difficult monkey bars etc that boys of his age can’t handle.
B. told me to take it easy, and yes, I know that knowing numbers and alphabets are not indicative of future success in anything. I’m just worried that he simply has a lazy streak like his mom, who didn’t care to learn her A, B, Cs till she was 7, and the only thing she remembered from kindergarten is a song that she now sings for her son.
Xuanie is enrolled in a private nursery school about 8 min drive from where we live. Twice a week, 2.5 hours each.
He simply loves it. They have a big indoor play-area with a lot of trucks and bikes that the kids can ride and peddle. That’s Xuanie’s favorite station for the morning’s free-play session. Every morning, he wakes up and asks if we’re going to school that day.
The teachers told me he does not cry, unlike many other kids, most of whom are older than him (since he is not 3 yet, and does not quite meet the age requirement of most nursery schools). I guess the daycare episode has trained him well. He knows Mama will come back for him.
I was told he’s very quiet and would simply observe, never actively participating. Knowing him, when he’s quiet and observing, I know he’s enjoying himself, and taking in things and processing them. Of course, he tells me a thing or two when he comes home, e.g. asking me to sing the songs he learnt at school. I gotta go ask the teachers what songs they sing, since X.’s singing is not quite intelligible to me yet, neither the lyrics nor the melodies.
May Xuanie grow to appreciate and understand the most precious gift he can ever ever ask for in this lifetime: Knowing God and be saved by the Lord Jesus and have Him as Lord all through this life.
Song by “Stream of Praise” 讚美之泉
這一生最美的祝福
在無數的黑夜裡 我用星星畫出你
你的恩典如晨星 讓我真實的見到你
在我的歌聲裡 我用音符讚美你
你的美好 是我今生頌揚的
這一生最美的祝福 就是能認識主耶穌
這一生最美的祝福 就是能信靠主耶穌
走在高山深谷 祂會伴我同行
我知道這是最美的祝福
Xuanie has just started to accept toast with peanut butter. I would cut off the crust for him and the rest of the hour or more, I would be coaxing him to chew and swallow his food (as with most other food I offer). It’s easy if he agrees to eat bread for breakfast, so I don’t have to cook rice or noodles for him.
For some reason, I always think of a scene in the movie “Closer” when I cut the crust off the bread for him:
Natalie Portman character: Who cut off your crust?
Jude Law character: Me.
NP: Did your mother cut off your crust when you were a little boy?
JL: Yes, I believe she did.
NP: You should eat your crust.
Xuanie met a new friend on a cruise on a ferry. She wrote a little note for him and passed it to me, saying she’d like to play with him. In her note, she said her name is M. and she found Xuanie to be “smart, kind and cute” etc. etc. They were playing for quite sometime, until another girl came along.
This other girl, S., told B. she’s noticed Xuanie since we got on the ferry and she wanted to play with X. too. She used her brother’s hand-held computer game to catch X.’s attention, quite successfully. Later, all three of them went to join another group of girls, but X. was playing with cars while the girls played with dolls.
It was funny when M. started offering juice and food to X. to try to “get him back.”
B. concluded that to win X.’s heart, technology and cars would be the best weapons. Our friend Khaled says X. loves good food, cars and women. Not sure that’s necessarily good, and hope it’s not true.
The cruise ended well, with M. leaving X. her phone number, and S. happily saying “hejda.”
A friend from London is visiting and so B. and him rented a two-seater Porsche so they could cruise around like what guys like to do. Xuanie was thrilled with the Porsche. He went on short rides with them, and alone with Papa. He was never this happy to be seated in the car-seat strapped to the passenger seat.
When we were going out of Stockholm to Dolaro, we had to take another car in addition to the 2-seater. Our friend said that the only constant was having Xuanie in the passenger seat of the Porsche and we have to figure out who to drive it and who to take the other car. I didn’t want to drive an expensive rented car, what if I crash it?
Xuanie solved the problem for us by insisting that he and Mama will take grandma’s car. He didn’t want to be in the exhilarating Porsche. He wanted to be with Mama.
It was so sweet of him, for I know he loved to ride in that convertible.
