Sarah's 20 month milestone

Sarah is 20 months old, coming to 21 soon. Our little darling is certainly learning and absorbing things fast. Harby and I have to be extra careful with what we do or say in front of her, because she is observing everything. She's even immitating the way I talk. Sarah has come a long way from that tiny baby I used to know. Now she can even play tricks on me!

Yak yak
Sarah can in talk fairly well now, not perfect, but she can talk in a string of words. I am often amused at the way she talks and at times she really surprises me. Looks like my little girl is growing up. She usually converse in Mandarin because everyone around her (except for me) speaks to her in Mandarin. She will talk to me in English when she feels like it though. Unfortunately, being a Penangite, Sarah can’t speak Hokkien.. except for a few words here and there. You know lar.. in Penang, EVERYONE speaks Hokkien ALL THE TIME. The Hokkien in northern states of Malaysia is different from those in the southern. And coming from south, often find it hard to strike a conversation in Hokkien because the vocabulary and the accent is different.

Sarah can Sing.
Sarah can sing a few songs by now. Although she can’t sing the entire song yet, she’s able to hum the tune or finish up the sentence of the lyrics. Sarah remembers lyrics easily too. She loves both English and Chinese songs. She likes people to sing to her as well. She’ll often tell me “Mummy, sing song please”. And being the dutiful Mummy, I'll have to sing to her with actions and all. A "Mummy" is definitely a demanding job.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, once I caught a fish alive
Wheee...Sarah can count….. in Bahasa Malaysia! Why? I don’t know. She can count satu, dua, tiga… sepuluh. But she is still learning to count in English. Right now she only knows a sequences numbers like after one is two, after nine is ten, etc.

A,B, C
Sarah can say her ABC, Sarah can say her ABC! I’m so excited. Yesterday she recited ABC 2 times from A right up till Z! That was something I wasn’t expecting at all! I guess she was absorbing after all when we talked to her, although she doesn’t look like she was paying any attention to us. To put the record straight I never pressured Sarah to learn/memorize anything so that's why I'm surprised when she showed-off her feat. I didn't expected her to go beyond A,B,C, D and maybe E actually. Ha :D.

Character
Sarah’s at the stage where she’ll do whatever you tell her not to, and not do whatever you tell her to. That often drives me up the wall. It’s so exasperating especially when one (like me) has limited patience. I get extra frustrated if she doesn’t eat her fruits or food. As you may have already know, Sarah has constipation problem since young. And every time she poos, it will be painful or even bloody. Therefore she has associated poo with pain. This makes her hold on to her bowals all the more. AND this makes the whole thing a vicious cycle. Sarah must eat very high fibre food/supplements, that children at her age will not be subjected to. However her unwillingness to cooperate with me makes me so frustrated. I’m frustrated that if she doesn’t eat her fruits she’ll have pebble-like stools again. And Sarah is frustrated because Mummy is always forcing her to eat. So how?? I think I need divine intervention to help us.

Sarah is also at the stage where she’s “testing water”. Why do I call it "testing water"? Because she's as though testing the water with the tip of her toes and if the coast is clear, she'll try to dip in further. She's testing how far she can push us before Mummy/Daddy retaliates. She’s determining her borders. I on the other hand will not Sarah push that too far. Yes, I’m that rotan-wielding mum inside every child’s nightmare. MUAHMUAHAHAHA. Actually party true, though at times I wish I was. I do have a “cane” at home but Sarah is too not afraid of it. I think I need a Plan B fast.