The Number 12

Magnus did a number on us last night.  It was the unintentional result of his rendition of one of his favourite Sesame Street songs: The Pinball 12.

Check it out:

See that clock?  Guess what was ringing at 2:30am this morning.  And guess who ran downstairs to the living room to shut it off.  And guess which two kids woke up because of the noise.  Luckily they woke up in series, or else there would be a few more expletives on this post.

I suppose it's my fault after all.  I thought Magnus' act was so cute that I made him do it for all his grandparents and Auntie Clemmie.  The alarm was bound to get switched on at some point or another.  The things we do for cuteness sake!

Swimming At Home

Magnus' nursery class goes swimming every Sunday, and so far Magnus has not ever been in the pool at school.  We could tell from the CCTV cam that he didn't want to try.  He wouldn't even wear his arm bands (water wings) which is a pre-requisite for swimming at school.

I decided to go to the pool at home and "practice" with him, now that the weather is nice and hot.  Today is his third swimming session at home, and you can see how much he loves it now!

Here he is sporting his Spiderman swim trunks in 33C weather.  (He also has another identical pair of trunks, along with two pairs of full length swimsuits, and two rash guards!)

I caught some nice video moments too:

Best of all, he asked his Daddy to take him home to use the potty, held it in the whole way, and peed in his potty.  Hooray!!

We'll Miss You

Popo prepares to leave Dubai in a couple of days.

I am sure Magnus will miss his Popo, her snacks, and her yummy soup.  Maya will most certainly wonder what happened to all the chummy chats with her most frequent babysitter.

But most of all, Mommy will miss her parents, their company, and their support.

This just means, of course, that we can look forward to other things in the future, such as Grandma Nancy's visit, and our upcoming holiday in Canada this summer!

What Magnus Said...

Spelling the word on his shirt by looking in the mirror:

Magnus: "T... 5... O... M!"

Fearing rejection:

Magnus: Now Magis has to have a <mouths the word popsicle>

Kendrick: I can't hear you Magnus, what do you want?

Magnus: A <mouths popsicle again>

Kendrick: If you don't tell me what you want, you'll have to come down from the high chair and "wash hands wash face"!

Magnus: "Wash hands wash face"!

Puttering around in Daddy's office:

Magnus: Mommy, what's that?

Gina: That's super glue, Magnus.

Magnus: It not super glue, it superman!

Vain yet grammatically challenged:

Popo: Hi Handsome Boy, who is more handsome, you or your daddy?

Magnus: You!

Why Popo has stopped eating bones:

Popo: (holding a giant pock hock) Magnus, would you like to eat a bone?

Magnus: No!  Dog eat bone!!

Getting closer to saying his name properly:

Gina: Hi Magis!

Magnus: It not Magis, it Magnut!

O Say Can You Say Potty?

I've started potty training Magnus for the second time, this time with the help of Po po.  We had talked about it for some time, but I was more busy/sick/tired when Maya was younger and so I postponed it.  Then came the start of Pre-school which was quite an emotional roller coaster for Magnus.  Most postponement.  I also took my sweet time getting a second potty - which I felt was critical because I did not want to run Magnus up and down the stairs every time there was a potty scare.  Lastly, Magnus was spending a lot of time with Gong gong, who was a little clueless when it came to identifying impending bowel movements.

Finally, the stars aligned.  Gong gong left for Toronto, Po po stayed in Dubai to help, and the second household potty was purchased (thanks Po po):

(A side note: this is actually potty #6 if you also count the 2 potties in Toronto, and the two potties in Vancouver!)

The kickoff event occurred on Mother's Day, when I noticed Magnus doing his pooping stance and making a pooping face.  I went to change his diaper and discovered that it was empty.  That's when I sat him down on his potty.  A few minutes later, he pooped.  To emphasize how important this event was, Po po gave him some dried mango as a reward.  We've been using this bribe mechanism ever since.

Now, 12 days later, we have partial success.  Magnus walks around all day in briefs, only wearing diapers for bedtime, going in the car, and going to school.  Most of the time he goes in his potty.  The biggest problem so far is that he won't tell us when he needs to go.  We just keep track and make him sit periodically.  This has led to a few spectacular accidents (urine stained footprints all over the living room, a pool of pee on the balconey, etc).

My distaste for cleaning the poop has also led to the recent purchase of this potty:

But all that cleaning is worth it to get Magnus off his diapers!

My mom tells me that it is normal for the kid to take some time to learn how to tell you it's time to go.  Magnus can certainly vocalize the entire process.  He knows he is supposed to tell us when it's time to go to the potty.  However, he is as always resistant to change, and my mom has predicted that what usually takes 2 weeks for normal kids will take 4-6 weeks for Magnus to master.  That's unfortunately as Po po is leaving in a few days.  Oh well, we will keep on pushing the potty!

(As I blogged this, Magnus had a poop in his potty.  I called it, not him <sigh>.)

May 26
After I wrote the above entry, I took Magnus to the mall to meet with a friend.  He had a yogurt, ran around the mall a bit, and then peed in his pants at Starbucks.  There he was, standing in a big puddle of pee.  I took him to the bathroom (he walked like he had been charley-horsed) and I took off his wet clothes and slapped a diaper on him but no pants (I had none).  This episode seems to have been the turning of the tide (pun not intended).  Since then, he's requested the potty three times accurately, including a poop this morning.  Cross your fingers for Magnut!!

Polka Dot Princess

Maya loves polka dots.  Last night, she was in my mom's room, chatting away to some mysterious listener.  After a bit of triangulation, we discovered that she was in fact talking to the polka dot curtains.

Magnus picked her shirt out for today.  He also thinks the song "the polka dot door" is a Maya exclusive.

Here's Maya's polka dot shirt (already too small):

Here are some of Maya's favorite things to look at:

That Smells Sesame Street!

In the past few weeks, Magnus' has made all sorts of improvements in counting and alphabet recognition (I don't really want to call it spelling yet).  Going to pre-school may have helped somewhat, but I actually doubt it.  I would rather attribute it to his general interest in the subject matter, lots of time reading and writing with mommy, and sesame street videos.

Ahhhh, sesame street!  A fellow Dubai mum suggested it to me a couple of weeks ago as a source of entertainment for Magnus.  Just search for Sesame Street Songs on youtube, she suggested, and you'll find so many celebrity songs in there that are adapted for kids, for example Feist's 1-2-3-4.

Since then Magnus and I have explored a lots of excellent videos, both old and new.  We both prefer the animation clips.  Sesame street monsters never really appealed to me that much.  I distinctly remember wondering as a child why people would hug sesame street monsters and say that they loved them.  Magnus also has shown some aversion to the muppets, particularly Grover.

Magnus' favorite numbers are 10, 20, and 12 (in that order).  His favorite letter is O.  His favorite words to spell are: "Maya", "Bingo", "Magnus", "Go", and "Stop".  He'll spell them with me and then declare, "That smells <word>!"  His favorite Sesame street videos are:

The old pinball:

The 4 bubbles:

The 20 song:

and 10 tiny turtles (strange to say, as he hates eating vegetables!):

Why didn't I turn to Sesame street earlier?  I guess I didn't realize how many animated clips they had posted.

Finally, if anyone is interested, my favorite video is the classic ladybug picnic:

My next favorite is this sweet video, because the chubby chicks remind me of Maya!

Maya's First LOL

I propped up Maya on the sofa for the first time.  She loved it.  She loved it even more when our housekeeper started entertaining her:

If you were wondering, she's wearing Magnus' old onesie.  She spits up a lot so she goes through a lot of onesie inventory!!!

Meanwhile, at nursery, Magnus counts the pencil crayons:

He's wearing his swimsuit in this clip.  I don't have any clips of him swimming because guess what, he refused to go in the pool!

The Cucumber Book

Two weeks ago, Magnus asked me to read him his "cucumber" book.  I had never heard of this book, so I started going through all the books  in his bookcase with him.  We ended up looking at each and every one.  All I got for my efforts was, "Nope!  Nope!  That not Magis cucumber book!"

Although I am the only one reading to Magnus, I asked around.  Daddy, Po-po, the housekeeper... nobody knew what the heck he was talking about.  I even skyped Gong gong on the off-chance he might know.  No luck. 

Is it a big book?  A small book?  What color is your book?  Does it have Chinese or English?  All these questions were fruitless, Magnus was as evasive as he was persistent in his desire to find his precious book.

We searched all the books upstairs in his room.  It was more "Nope!" and "No!" until suddenly..  "That Magis cucumber book!".  He held a little green hard cover book in his hands called "I Spy".  I opened it for him, and he said, "That not Magis cucumber book!"  Grrrrr...

I went over to the adult bookcase.  I pulled out my cookbook, "The Complete Encyclopedia of Vegetables and Vegetarian Cooking" and flipped to the cucumber page.  Is this your cucumber book, Magnus?  "Yeah!  That cucumber!!".  Is it your cucumber book, I repeated.  "No!  That Mommy's cucumber book!"  Siiiiiigh...

I tried another angle.  Is the cucumber book at school, Magnus?  Does Ms. Alison read you the cucumber book?  Same answer: Nope!  A few days later, when I picked him up at school, I took him to the little school library and we went through some books there; none of which were his cucumber book.  

I would have completely given up if it weren't for the fact that he would periodically ask for it... also because Po po would think it funny to ask him about it now and then. 

Today, however, I had a breakthrough.  We again could not find his cucumber book.  It's not here Magnus, I said, where is it?  "It at Popo's house!" Really, I said, is it in Popo's house in China, or in Toronto?  "Chiiiiiina".

I took from the bookshelf a small, extremely dog-eared paperback book from Shanghai.  It was a picture book of fruits and vegetables.. one of the first books I would read to Magnus.  I flipped through it and sure enough, there was a cucumber.  Is this your cucumber book, Magnus?  "Yeah!!!!!  That Magis cucumber book!"

What Magnus Said...

Yet another set in a series of quotable quotes by Magnus:

Not sweating the small grammatical errors:

Gong gong: (to Gina) He wants to do it all by himself!

Gina: Magnus! You have to let Gong gong help you, why didn't you let Gong gong help you?

Magnus: Because he want to do it all by himself!

Evidently got his uncle on his mind:

Gina: Ah yes, the original!

Magnus: It not the 'riginal, it Uncle Reginald!!

Problem solving:

Magnus: A hole! <pointing at Mommy's blue sock, which he loves>

Gina: Yes, a hole!  Now what do we do?

Magnus: We have to throw the hole away!

Gina: You mean throw away the sock?

Magnus: No, the hole!

Thinking out loud

Magnus: Where Magis pants that look like Daddy's pants?  Hmmm, maybe it in the laundry!

Sleuthing:

Magnus: (pointing to chocolate box) Want a chocolate!

Gina: (lying through her teeth) There are no more chocolates, Magnus, Gong-gong ate them all!

<pause>

Magnus: Want to look inside the box!

Just being naughty:

Magnus: (in the bathroom) Hi Mommy!  What are you doing out there?

Gina: (in the bedroom) Hi Magnus, what are you doing in there?

Magnus: Not touching anything! <and pooping his pants, I learned later>

And here's a bonus picture (or three) for sticking around until the end of this post:

Malaysian Chicken Recipe

This recipe is Magnus approved!  (Although Kendrick doesn't care for it too much…)

The proof is below, where Magnus ate up the rice so quickly it's all over his shirt, pants, and hair: