2/12/2012 (16.7 months) - Cataldi park

We went to a picnic and met up with old friends today. 10 years ago none of us had any kids. Today, there were more kids than adults.

2/12/2012 - logic

A few days ago, Evan grabbed a small toy car from the toy bin and started saying something that I didn't quite understand.  It was one of those toy cars that had wheels that only turned when you push the car along a surface, i.e., it wasn't motorized or needed any battery.  It looked like Evan was trying to turn it on because he flipped the car to the underside to look for a switch.  The reason he did this is because he has another bigger toy car which does require batteries and had a switch on the underside.  But this toy car didn't have a switch.  He got a little irritated that I didn't know what he wanted so he pulled me by the hand and led me to the hallway closets and signaled me to open it.  After I opened it, he pointed up at one of the shelves and said something like 'arrie'.  He had seen me take batteries out of a container on the shelf so I figured he was looking for that.  So I brought out the container, opened it and he immediately went to grab a battery.  But before he was done, he also signaled me to get the screwdriver out of the screwdriver kit/box.  Basically, he wanted to make the toy car go, and so in order to do that, he concluded that he needed batteries.  And in order to install the batteries, he needed a screwdriver to open the battery door.  None of this would be remarkable if he was a 3 or 4 year old, but he's only 16.5 months old.  Perhaps all babies are able to transfer knowledge about one object onto a similar object.  But not only did he know that the toy car needed batteries, he also knew that it wasn't a simple matter of having a battery, but that the battery needed to be placed into the car and that required a tool.  Amazing set of logic gears running in there!

2/11/2012 - Filoli

We went to Filoli today to see if any spring flowers were in bloom. As the estate had just opened for the season on monday (2/6), we didn't think there would be much, but it had been quite a while since we've been there, that we wanted to go check it out again. There weren't much in bloom indeed but still the estate was peaceful and beautiful. Here I was able to grab a pretty nice portrait shot of Evan:

 

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2012.02.04 Sweet Tomatoes

Evan has started to speak two-syllable words and learning new ones almost as soon as he hears them the first time.  Today at Oakland zoo, he surprised us a bit by repeating several new words he heard almost immediately.  First there's luo-tor (camel in chinese) - he had heard us say it many times in the past but today was the first time he said it himself.  Then when we saw the baboons, I didn't think he would be able to repeat it, especially not rightaway.  But when I said the word, he also said it just a few seconds later.  He also said a few other new words.  He's picking them up really fast now and seem to be interested in multi-syllable words, nice!    He's also eating better than before, especially when we go to Sweet Tomatoes, a salad buffet restaurant.  We bought a few sets of toddler plates/bowls/cups/spoons/forks this week for Evan and he's been very happy using them.  He is also started to drink from a regular cup (no straws) with both hands.  He doesn't have great control over the cups yet so he spills a lot of it onto his shirts, but he's definitely improving with every use.  He's doing better with the spoon and getting stuff out of a bowl as well.  The daycare is finally letting him use the spoon to feed himself a bit and he's really enjoying the freedom to feed himself.

Evan can now follow along 4 songs: 1) Row row, row your boat, 2) Old McDonalds had a farm, 3) Twinkle Twinkle little star, and 4) Itsy bitsy spider.  By follow along, I mean that he would say the last word of each line of rhyme.  So for example, he would say "star" when we say "twinkle twinkle little...", and then "are" when we say "how I wonder what you .... "  Or when we say "row row row your boat gentle down the ...", he would add "stream".  It's very cute and shows he's paying close attention to whatever is being said to and around him :)