Characteristics of a two and a half year olds behavior

My two and a half year old-Jeremiah Wong.

• 2 1/2 year olds are rigid and inflexible. They want exactly what they want, when they want it. They cannot adapt, give in, wait a little while. Everything has to be done just so. Everything has to be right in the place they consider proper. For any domestic routine, they set up a rigid sequence of events which must always follow each other always in exactly the same manner.
• They are extremely domineering and demanding. They must give orders. They must make the decisions. If they decide, “mummy do”, daddy cannot be accepted as substitute. If they decide, “Me do it myself”, then no one is allowed to help them, no matter how awkward or incapable they themselves may be.
• 2 1/2 is an age of violent emotions. There is little modulation to the emotional life of children this age.
• It is an age of opposite extremes. With no ability to choose between alternatives (it is almost impossible for 2 1/2’s to make a clear cut choice and stick to it). Children of this age shuttle back and forth endlessly between two extremes, seeming to be trying to include both in their decision. “I will - I won’t”, “I want - I don’t want it”, “Go out - stay in”. If someone doesn’t cut into this back and forth shuttling, it has been known to go on for upwards of an hour or more. The decision of what clothes to wear may ursurp a whole morning for a conflict-ridden 2 1/1 year old.
• Another characteristic of this is age is preservation - that is, the children want to go on and on with whatever they are doing. Not only right at the moment but from day to day. If you read four stories before bedtime yesterday, they want four stories - and the same ones, too - today. It is very difficult with many children this age to introduce new clothes, new pieces of furniture, new things to eat. They want things to go on just the way they have always been or at least hold on to the old as new things are added.

The above article was taken from : http://planningwithkids.com/2009/02/10/characteristics-of-two-and-a-half-year-old-behavior/

Yes, the article is spot on about me and at 2 1/2 , I am already off Diapers at least during the day!! Yippee I am a big boy now. How please does that make me :)

I am finally ready for play school next year.

Stay tune for more updates..

Farewell Joe Boy

written by Mummy --

Breed: Bichon Frise (Cross Breed)

D.O.B: 1/2/1998

P.O.D: 2/10/2009 (11 years)

Today marked the day that Joe Joe Boy, a pet which had been through thick and thin with us had finally passed on.

We all missed him badly. Even now as I wrote this blog, my tears couldn't stop flowing. This is the 1st time that we witness the death of an animal and it turned out to be our beloved Joe Joe boy.

I could still recall the day we went to SPCA to choose a dog for our family. He was in the cage with this poodle. This poodle was so busy showing off stunts and tricks hoping that we would choose her. Joe Joe boy (he was then named Picasso) was a quiet little dog, hiding at one corner, and wagging his tail at the sight of us.

He caught our eyes, and we decided to bring him home. It wasn't easy to adopt a dog from SPCA, as rules and regulations of SPCA states that all the family members whom are living in the same household will have to be present at the point in time when the dog was adopted.

I recall the first day we brought him back, and being in a new environment, he would love to roam around the house. There were many times where he could just squeeze through the main gate of the house as he was too skinny then. After many months of love and care showered upon him, he soon put on weight and couldn't squeeze through the gates anymore.

There were times when I strolled with him along the road, and, being a dog, he would roam and smell each and every corner till he found the spot to do his business. There was once when he was done with his business and he stayed at that particular place for more than 10 minutes and I got curious. So I called out to him and right away he started to move towards me but he avoided eye contact with me. This was indeed strange, so I bent down to look at him and guess what, there was this little white bone(chicken wing) that was in his mouth. I was too shocked to see him holding the bone in his mouth and realised why he avoide eye contact in the first place. It wasn't difficult to notice the white bone as he is a BLACK dog.

There were times when he would pester us for food when we gather at the table for dinner. He would stand on his paws and ask for food, and bark at the door if you accidentally locked it.

There was this once when I have finished cooking a bowl of noodles. Joe Joe was right underneath my hands holding the bowl of hot soup. As I didn't notice that he was right infront of me, I missed a step and the soup spilled on my hands instead. I guess everyone's natural response would be to let go of the bowl and let it fall to the floor but when I saw Joe Joe right below the bowl, I withdrew that thought. I held on to the bowl tightly fearing that it would cause him more hurt if I were to let go. It was so painful that even if I were to emptied the ice from the freezer, the pain wouldnt go away. That incident really left a strong impact on me and till now I am paranoid of bringing hot soup out of the kitchen.

There were times that my siblings and I were afraid of losing him. We make it a point every now and then to make sure that he is still breathing even when he lay on the floor to sleep. For the past few months that Joe Joe is still around, little Jeremiah will definitely be looking around for Joe Joe waiting to have fun with him. Joe Joe is more afraid of Jeremiah than Jeremiah is of him. Jeremiah would touch his tail and his body and giggled when the Joe Joe boy felt uneasy with the touch. It was fun looking at Jeremiah interacting with Joe Joe boy.

The day has finally come for him to leave us as he was old . He was 11 years old when he left us, which was equivalent to 77 years of human age. Today, Jeremiah knew that something was wrong as all he could do was to peep through the door and all he could see was Joe Joe boy laying motionlessly on the cushion. Jeremiah asked: "Mummy.... why?" as he pointed at Joe Joe, I told him that Joe Joe was tired and now he needed to rest. Jeremiah would then walk away.

His departure didn't came as a surprise to us but nevertheless, we still feel sad and refused to touch on the topic. I really hope that he is in a better place now and hope the atmosphere at my mum's would eventually get better.

He will always fondly remembered in our heart.

day 8 - taipei part 4 (taipei 101) and Home

Today is the day that we are heading towards Tallest Towers in the World "Taipei 101" but before setting off, we had to settle down for a good breakfast at Mcdonalds.

Below are the pictures shown for our breakfast for the day.

The Taipei 101 Tower of Taiwan is the tallest building on Earth. Its height above ground is 509.2 m. This includes the 60 m spire; the building also holds the record for the highest roof (440 m).

The Taipei 101 Tower contains the world's fastest and most comfortable elevators. The building is thrilling to look at, an impressive tribute to steel, glass and incredibly clever engineering. And yet the design clearly reflects the local Chinese culture; for example, there are eight canted sections, eight being the lucky number in Chinese. Each section is embellished with a traditional Chinese symbol of fulfillment, the symbols being large enough to be visible from the ground.

in this picture, I am standing next to one of the 4 "mascots" for taipei 101. i like the red colour cos it matches my t shirt

here's the view from the 91st floor. the cars and people look really really tiny, i tried to use the spyglass but it doesn't help. much.

Vibrations are damped by suspending a massive steel ball weighing 606 tonnes; steel is a wonderfully dense material; the volume of an aluminium ball would be some three times as large, which is intolerable for such an elegant design. The ball is suspended from the 92nd floor to reduce lateral vibrations. The ball is in fact made from a stack of steel plates of varying dimensions. It is connected to pistons which drive oil through small holes, thus damping vibrations. (The ball is just behind me if you stare really carefully at the picture)

above is mummy's lunch.

mine's below, i think it looks more yummy than mummy's

this was the mrt card that we used during this trip and we have also uploaded the train network,
it doesn't look complicated, right?

day 7 - taipei part 3

on day 3 in taipei, for we headed up to 石林夜市 in the evening - we went exploring via taking the MRT (they call it the same name in english here, too) where I was very happy to wear my new cap bought during lunchtime.

here we see Mummy's favourite stop in the entire holiday - Cold Stone's Creamery ice cream. Daddy tells me they mix and crush the ice cream + the ingredients on a cold stone... hence the name...

but the uncles there would not allow Daddy to take a picture of the 'mixing' process, nor of them tossing the ice cream around - a little like the japanese fish market i saw on tv - except its with ice cream - not fish :)

I am savouring this nice little puffs with bits of custard - which Mummy bought from
石林夜市 a store just below the MRT station.