Project Baby: 15th Month Update

Ju's development hit a few more high spots this month. He is 15 months old and now vocalises the "A" vowels (ma, ba, pa, na, da) consistently but still prefers yelling, grunting, shrieking and spewing as his favourite modes of communication. That and of course, pointing. He's on schedule according to the standard developmental milestones of infants and children and from anecdotal evidence on playgrounds, he appears to be larger than the average 15 month old (he is often mistaken to be older than his age).  The milestone of the past 4 weeks has been his interest in books. He is just lapping them up! He now zooms in on his favourite books and brings them to me so that we can read together. It's more like me asking him where's this or that object or animal and he would point. If he doesn't know a particular word, like "toothpaste" (in all or any of the 3 languages), he would squeal impatiently as if to say "where the heck is that? where? what?" and he would quiet down when I point to the right picture. It's hilarious.
  
Routines, routines, routines

His reading habit came about rather naturally, i.e. we didn't have to force him to sit and look at books. Some of my friends have expressed dismay that their sons would never sit for longer than 10 seconds for a book. In fact, research out there seems to confirm that boys' brains at this age are wiring them to behave completely differently to girls. Testosterone, it seems, is the culprit. I've tried to "temper" Ju, if I may call it that, by setting up a routine for him every day since kids his age like structure. Soon, I hope, when his developing morality kicks in, he will like rules. So our bed time routine is pretty standard: once Ju indicates his interest in bed (he would climb onto our bed which is joined conveniently to his cot) around 7.30pm, I would tell him that it's time to brush his teeth. He would willingly clamber down and follow me to the bathroom where I would get his toothbrush and toothpaste ready, all the time repeating the same words in Mandarin: here's your toothbrush and here's the toothpaste. I would hand him the brush and sing the same song "This is the way we brush our teeth, brush our teeth...." in tune to Wheels On The Bus Go Round And Round. He loves this, and recently, started tapping his feet to the song as he brushed! Yes, he does try to brush, though I have to help him with the front teeth and back, but doing this daily has conditioned Ju to it to the extent that he doesn't hate it like he used to. Singing and pretending to let him brush my teeth as well helps. With the edible toothpaste, he doesn't have to rinse, so he takes water after he's done and then we're off to the next part of the routine: reading. He would pick out a book and I'll do a Chinese adhoc translation and improvisation according to what catches his attention. At this stage, it isn't so important to read the words on the page as much as it is to engage him in the images and sounds of words. I would say books played a huge role in building his vocabulary. 

Unfortunately, we haven't cured the habit of aiding him to fall asleep. I will admit here that Daniel and I made a conscious decision to be Ju's sleep-aids and we more than enjoy this part of the night. Yes, we actually love lying in bed next to our only son, watching him snuggle his pillow, hug his stuffed dog and offer it to us for hugs as well as he gets himself ready for bed. Which parent wouldn't? He sleeps through most of the time now, without need for milk in the night, and we've resigned ourselves to co-sleeping. You could attribute it partly to our guilt for spending a total of 2 hours per workday with him and partly to our belief in giving him as much security as he needs in the first 3 years of his life. I've read the criticisms of co-sleeping and I know about the research on cultivating independence. However, after many discussions, we've decided that having no memory of acute anxiety from being left to cry alone to sleep as children, we're quite happy to share our room with him until he can speak. In fact my mother told me that I used to sleep next to my grandmother every night for the first three years of my life until I went back home to live with my parents. I don't remember much separation anxiety, and eventually, I did sleep in my own room without much fuss. This could be extreme self-rationalization, but I think every parent is justified in his/her own parenting style and decision as long as they can live with the consequences.

Physical Development

Gross motor: Ju can now walk up stairs with help. He also attempts to climb up the steps on the slide at the playground. He also likes sliding although he seems to be more interested in climbing up the slide. He can now climb onto the sofa, bed, and recently chairs. He seems to understand that standing atop a chair results in shouts of alarm from adults and he takes great relish in doing this for the attention. I know because he eyes us very obviously as he climbs and if no one is about, he would shout out to inform us of his feat. As a response, my father nailed two wooden slats to the sides of the dining chairs so that Ju can no longer climb onto them. He can also push open and close doors, but not work knobs or handles. He can do simple chores like bring his diaper or an item of rubbish to the bin for disposal.  He can also stand or sit when asked to. He can't sit himself down on a stool properly (butt first) and instead does it with the stool in front of him (as if getting onto a bike). He loves handling a mini mop or broom and "cleaning up". He is ahead of schedule in terms of his ability push and pull large objects. He has been moving chairs, stools, laundry baskets and his motorised scooter around the house for the last 2 months. He doesn't quite run yet (more for 18 months and after) but he can manage a brisk and sometimes teetering jog.

Fine motor: He can build a wobbly tower of 3 to 4 cubes or blocks. He's not interested in legos or building things as much as tossing them about. He can also use a spoon and fork clumsily and holds his water bottle or sippy cup to drink. I haven't tried scribbling with him yet, as I haven't found the right crayons or pencils. He can turn the pages of a book now and even carries a little nylon bag when I ask him to. I use the words "Help Mummy do this and that..." a lot to get him used to doing things by himself and also to get him acquainted with words.

Cognitive and Language Development

He still doesn't say any real "word" aside from his vowel vocalisations. We're not too perturbed about this since he is extremely communicative without language. He points non stop at things when we're out, his obsession is currently still dustbins big and small. The finger is still his most efficient tool to getting what he wants. He also looks in the appropriate direction when asked for the location of something, e.g. he searches in the sky when asked "where is the moon?" and points at it if he finds it. His understanding of concepts is developing as he uses specific gestures when he hears words like "pain" and "fall" or phrases like "that's dangerous". He would immediately smack his head to indicate that he understood. Problem is, he associates this gesture with any pain he is feeling and so when he hurt his tooth biting down on a xylophone stick, he kept hitting his head, as if to tell me, "Mummy, my tooth hurts." He is performing at 18-24 month olds in terms of pointing to pictures in books when asked specific words as well as pointing to a body part correctly. So far he understands nose, mouth, ears, eyes, hair, head, teeth in German, Chinese and English. He is learning "tongue"  and I suspect he knows "pee pee" but I haven't had a chance to test this one out yet.

Psychosocial Development

The greatest surprise of the month was when our friends Loping and Andreas stayed with us for two nights with their son Dion, who is 3 months senior to Ju. They were roughly at the same psychosocial milestones, meaning they ignored each other most of the time unless one happened to overstep his territorial boundaries, in this case, poor Dion who got the full force of Ju's rarely seen wrath. Ju became a complete terror overnight (literally) when he woke that morning to discover another small boy in his house. As the day wore on and it became clear that the new people were not going anywhere, Ju started to whine and sulk as my attention got diverted to the guests and cooking dinner. His claiming of possessions really came out as Dion took to his toys, especially Ju's red bobby car. Luckily Ju hadn't developed much interest in it so he wasn't so enraged. He instead went after Dion when the latter hijacked his more treasured tennis ball. 

As with most 15-18 month olds, Ju does not respond to scolding or physical punishment. Yesterday when I smacked his hand after he did what I told him not to (toss the object), he stared at me intently and tossed it again. Then he held his hand out so that I could slap it. I gave up the smacking. In terms of defiance, Ju certainly has lots of it. This is an expression of his growing sense of autonomy and is normal, I read. His favourite display of autonomy/defiance is climbing onto the coffee table when he knows he would get a sharp reprimand. A verbal threat to smack him with my hand raised usually convinces him to come back down. However, since a child his age can't yet respond to persuasion or reprimands, it's getting hard to get him to do things, much less refrain from doing things. It took me 5 whole minutes to "persuade" Ju to pick up the legos he had tossed. He only did so when I told him that "Mummy would help him pick them up as well". He can also differentiate between what are himself and others. When asked where Daddy's nose is, he punches at Daniel's nose.

He had a playdate last weekend with 3 other kids. Two were over 2 years old and another was his age. None of the kids played with each other and all did their own thing although they were interested in the same things, namely the brooms and mop. He is wary of strangers and a strange place, especially other people's homes, but he loses his wariness after a few minutes, depending on whether there are distractions like toys and animals. Cats, dogs and fish work well to take the edge off a new and unfamiliar place. Toys are a no-brainer. The other big development this month was temper tantrums. This is more characteristic of 18 months and older, but Ju let it rip on several occasions. His fit would include tears and bitter wailing, throwing his head back and clinging to me. I would respond as calmly as I could, namely do nothing and just hold him. If he didn't calm down, I would distract him with something else. I still haven't figured out the tantrums yet because he doesn't have them that often. But on the few occasions that he did, they were quite alarming in their ferocity.  Just as Ju throws himself wholeheartedly into his frustrations, he also learned to show affection. When asked for a kiss, he would offer his cheek or his nose/lips. He reaches out his hand whenever there is a farewell, especially if he's in the car and there's a window between him and the person waving farewell. The funniest surprise was when I asked him to give Dion a goodbye kiss, and he willingly obliged, even with no existing emotional attachment to him. Which makes me wonder if he associates kisses with the actual emotion of affection.

Ju blows Dion a kiss.