We somehow managed to get Jakjak into reading. And as such, we have amassed a good number of books for him. He does not read yet, unfortunately, but at least the drive is there. We have already put aside books that were not for his age anymore like shapes, colors and big drawing types. Although occasionally he manages to find the hidden treasure box and asks us to read his old books. Those books used to take us 2 minutes to finish back when he was 2 years old. now it takes us 1 and 1/2 minutes. You just can't satisfy a child's curiosity. Add to that the fact that they are able to find the most minute detail in a picture book made for children under the age of 3!
We are now into Dr. Seuss. And strangely enough, the stranger the book, the more interesting it is for Jakjak. Cat in the hat is just a tiny part in the imagination of Dr. Seuss. In fact, you can probably live in a whole planet of weird with all the characters in these books. And although we feel that there are some words that are still not suited for his age, parental guidance helps with controlling what goes into a child's mind (we now have the ability to automatically replace the word "stupid" with "silly" out of any reading material no matter the font face).
We are also a regular now in the public library where there are lots of "free" books. At least free for two weeks. I believe it's a good thing to start them early on reading. It enhances his vocabulary and is a great excuse for dad to spend some quality time with baby without breaking his back playing horseback (dad of course being the horse). I do my best to read at least 2 books a night, all of which I have to go into character to keep him busy. I know he's paying attention because I play with the words and he corrects me every so often. In fact, you can't skip pages because he absolutely knows the books inside and out now.
In general, we choose books with nice, friendly pictures and big enough text. We match it with his attention span and his interests (cars, faeries and families) and only buy it if we know he really likes it. We had books that he read for one week and we have books that he has been reading for months! We do our best to get into the habit of reading to him and we have a regular schedule now. Unfortunately, "schedule" does not mean the time of the night, it just means the sequence of events before he goes to sleep (bath, brush teeth, story, sleep). Still, we prefer this than having fall asleep in front of the telly (he already does that for his afternoon naps).
I remember the days when I started making the house a safer place for babies. That was the day Jakjak first fell off the bed. And to think he wasn't even 5 months old back then. Over the years, I thought that we have already outgrown the need to make things safe. I mean, it was almost always second nature to us already to keep sharp things away from child's reach, dangerous liquids in high cabinets and all that basic safety ideas. So last night, Jakjak managed to cut his pinky-finger with a fold-away trolly.
I have already surrendered to the fact that a toddler, a boy at that, would be an active and adventurous little critter. How wrong I was. He is active, and he is adventurous. Just not as active and adventurous as I would have thought. As he was growing up, Jakjak had always been playing catch up with me. During his "training" years, he would be able to run a few meters and then sit down. Today, dad can run a few meters and then sit down. It's a sad thing when age comes clawing up your lower back. Still, that is active play, and I know that kids need it. As much of it as he wants as far as I'm concerned (because if he manages to tire himself out of playing, the chances that he would go take a bath and straight to bed is much more a possibility). But sometimes there are no kids his age at the playground, so he plays with an adult with a brain his age (yes, he looks at me that way - in fact, even Judy does - waitaminute! sounds like a conspiracy to me!).
And in the hours upon hours of playing and being silly, he manages to get bruised, scratched, cut, you name it. Jakjak shrugs most of it off. In fact, in his dictionary, it's "no blood, no foul". Of course, in mum and dad's dictionary it's "that won't come off until Tuesday". At the back of it all, we do our best to remind him to be careful, to watch where he's going (this one, it seems, he has absolutely no drive to do) and to watch out for that tree. It's amazing how tough he is though. It's like he was carved out of marble. It really takes quite a wallop to stop him in his tracks. And at the very least, we are thankful that he is as tough as nails.
It started out as your typical week. A bit tiring because of the current shift at work and a bit stressed due to lack of manpower. At home, it was more or less, typical as well. Jakjak being Jakjak, he becomes annoyingly cute. I'm not quite sure if it's just because we're his parents that we can keep our sanity behind all of his antics. He runs around our small flat, bumps his head on the sofa (twice), trips on his own toys and never stops talking about anything and everything. Sometimes I wonder where he gets all his stories from because he somehow has a never ending supply of it.
Near the end of the week though, Jakjak decided to add some spice to our lives. More for mum though, because I was hot under the collar but still went all the way to work (sometimes, you just have to). 15 minutes through my commute, Judy calls me up and asks where I hid the torches. It was ten in the morning so I wondered what the torch was for. Apparently, the little monkey stuck two rubber tires (from a toy aeroplane) into his nose. While mum managed to get one of them out, Jakjak insists that he put in two. And while kids tend to make up stories to grab your attention, we believe him and mum takes him to the clinic. The clinic, after failing to remove the tire (how hard can it be, right?) referred the two to a specialist children's hospital.
Alas, after a few hours of struggling with the doctors and nurses (the bad experience from the clinic irritated the little boy somehow), he was deliberately put to sleep. Within a few minutes, they managed to yank out the remaining tire. However, due to the sedation, the hospital kept them for another hour until it wore off. All of the things that happened probably enriched my wife's experience as a mum by ten-fold. And while I did want to be there to help, work (as usual) kept me from doing such. However, Judy handled it beautifully, and at the end of the day, it was like nothing happened at all (for Jakjak anyway).
When I asked Jakjak what he was trying to do when he put the tires in his nose, he said: "Well, I was trying to make mommy happy, but she wasn't, she got cross". I could only imagine the scene when Jakjak had excitedly proclaimed "Look Mom!" with the tires on his nose. At the end of his story, Jakjak merely stated: "It's crazy, huh?".
