Vai @ Jakarta (16 months old)
Vai turned 16 months on the day we left for Jakarta. And at this age, he’s very much like what they usually say about 16 month old kids in general.
He’s not that worried about wandering off by himself or doing stuff that can be a bit ‘shocking’ to those who are NOT his parents. VERY into exploring EVERYTHING far and near, high and low, hidden and seen, dry and wet, dirty and grubby. Asserts his wants and does tricks that can either make us laugh or frown.
Anyway. Here are a few quick updates on our increasingly curious little man.
Different exposure
While we’re in Jakarta, he’s frequently exposed to things that are not ‘easily available’ here. Stuff like a pet dog, stairwells at home, even pebbles in the garden (other than always having family members around, of course)
And so yes, we let him explore. He climbed, played with pebbles, fed the fish, and played with my Dad’s friendly yet barkless dog (breed: Basenji).
Now, about the dog (her name is Dolly, btw).
This was the first time he ever encountered a dog for a long period of time (some five days in total). And when he first saw it coming and giving him a sniff, he immediately hid behind my legs and asked to be carried.
Wilson and I are into letting our kids be exposed to different experiences to learn and discover things for themselves, and so we slowly let him interact with the dog. And by day 2, Vai’s comfortable enough to touch and play with her.
And well, to cut the story short, by day 5, Vai insisted to play with the dog whenever we’re at home. He spent a LOT of time with the dog, throwing a tennis ball for her to fetch, patting her snout, even lying on the floor together with her! And errr… naturally he did smell very much like the dog too afterwards!
[To concerned clean readers: Vai always had his showers afterwards. Hehe]
Mealtimes
He still needs to be engaged in something during mealtimes, if we’re to get him to eat.
And letting him self-feed is (nearly always) a good solution to this. Yes it’s messy (and frankly, rather troublesome for the parents) but really, to me, at least this way the kid eats!
The interesting bit, whenever I feed him small cubes of fruits and he refuses, I let Anya do the feeding. And most of the time, he’d eat it up!
(read: one of the great things of having more than one kid!)
And oh, he loves noodles!
Dots and marks
Vai somehow was very attractive to mosquitoes! He got more than twenty huge red bites all in all. Insect repellent sprays and lotion somehow didn’t really help much for his case.
(Anya got bitten too, though not as much nor as swollen)
Vai’s somehow more accident prone too during his recent trip! Each day he’d trip over, fall or knock himself at least ten to twenty times (yes, I counted). It happened so often that we’re sort of quite casual about it. He too would just get up and continue what he’s doing earlier after a knock, like nothing really happened (unless it’s really painful).
Like the bruise on his face (photo below), he got it when he tripped and knocked his cheek on the leg of a baby chair at a restaurant. He cried for five seconds and was okay again afterwards. Oh well.
Ah anyway. I think he truly enjoyed his recent trip. Yes he did have a bit of cough and runny nose while we’re there, but overall it was a trip full of family interactions and new discoveries for him.
His ‘WOW’ expression below says it all. Heh.
