first overseas trip with Rynus

For the past 3 years, the idea of bringing Rynus with us for vacation has been falling under the radar for one simple reason, it's already a challenge bringing him out of the house, let alone going overseas!!

Yes this little boy is such an angel to us at home but the moment we bring him out, he's full of piss and vinegar (most of the time).. There's no way he could sit still with us to enjoy a peaceful meal whenever we are outside. So how would we be able to manage him while bringing him to a foreign country? Thinking about the flight journey alone, is enough to give me goosebumps. Even Renzo who used to be pretty well behaved, insisted me to "OPEN THE WINDOW" in the airplane when he's around Rynus's age. I couldn't imagine what kind of battle I need to fight with Rynus so the farthest place he's been to so far, is Legoland in Malaysia as it's only about 1 hour drive away.

HongKong is a place my in laws have been wanting to visit since long ago, and we agreed (or I agreed) to bring them there but interestingly, each time we started planning about the trip in the past, I ended up expecting (LOL).. Finally we settled the itinerary and decided to bring the kids to Disneyland in HongKong this April, and of course, having my in laws tagging along at the same time so, not just that I could keep to my promise, they also could enjoy some fun bonding time with their grandsons all day long in a foreign land. And a 3 hours+ journey isn't too bad assuming, I  could distract Rynus successfully, with new stuff in the plane for the 1st hour, junk food for the 2nd hour and, tablet for the 3rd hour. Yes forget about all the house rules of no junk food no screen time, hey we are on a holiday!!

The trip turned out to be way better than expected, in the sense that it left a much deeper impact on little Rynus in many ways.

#1: He's enjoyed so much..
Yes what's more exciting than planning a trip and making the kids really happy?! Rynus asked to go to the hotel lobby every morning, to get a sweet from the friendly front-line staff, not forgetting an extra one for his Renzo korkor. He takes the lift to level 11 when he wants to get a dip in the pool or run about in their gigantic playground, or to level 15 and proudly announce to other guests in the lift, "I just pressed level 15" which is the level we stay at. Even till now, after we were back for weeks, he still occasionally exclaims, "I want to go to level 15!", or "I want to take aeroplane, yellow aeroplane! (We traveled by Scoot so that's why the 'yellow')", or, "I want to go to Disneyland!!". It's a very clear sign that he misses his trip to HongKong, though I doubt how much he could remember a year from now.

 

#2: He's learned so much..
There's always so much to see, so much to try when you are on vacation in a foreign land. Rynus didn't quite like the food in HongKong. There's nothing new there since he's not been eating well even back at home. But he loved the MTR train, the traditional tram (叮叮车), the Crystal Cabin Cable Car at Ngong Ping 360, and of course not to forget those amazing rides at Disneyland. Somehow all these "new" things triggered him to speak up more, in full sentences. Everyone around us noticed his change after the trip when he started communicating more, and showing less sign of shyness in front of acquaintance. And for his first experience taking a plane, it's so fun to see him learning to play with seat belt, front table, light etc for a good first 30 minutes of the flight.

 

 

 

#3: He's grown so much..
When we first hit to the airport during midnight, he made a big scene, partly because he was exhausted of course as it's way passed his usual sleep time of 9pm, and I had to punish him by bringing him to "naughty corner" and let him face the wall for a short "time out" period. The method didn't quite work out at home in the past as he seemed to have no fear about it at all. But when we travel, it worked like miracle. I explained to him that I would have to use this method if he misbehaves. And here are the 4 times I used "time out" on him. It's very obvious that the method worked better and better day after day. He clearly understands the consequences when I mention the word "naughty corner" and disciplining him has became so much easier nowadays.

1st time: for forcing grandpa to get on the escalator that goes only one way down when they need to go up

 

2nd time: for playing hide and seek with everyone at the mountain top while visiting big Buddha 

3rd time: for running about at the train station when Mummy was alone to take care of the two

 

4th time: for running away while waiting for Mummy to settle payment at cashier in shopping mall 

So the next question is, "Should we bring Rynus for vacation again?!", or better still, "Where should we bring him to for our next vacation?!"

introducing digital learning to Rynus for the first time

Remember the famous set of Leapfrog "Tag reader" Books? Being a huge Leapfrog fan family, I couldn't believe we didn't invest on a "Tag reader" pen, but I did borrowed this set of books from my sister when Renzo was 3. And "Casey cat has a hat" is probably the first book Renzo managed to read independently when he was 3+.

So, in less than 2 months time, Rynus is turning 3. Of course I would not miss my chance to put my precious little one to a test, yes, a reading test, just to see how he fares in terms of reading. Again don't get me wrong, I am not interested to compare Rynus with other kids, not even his own brother, it's just a reality check to help me understand him better and see what I can do to help him learn how to read on his own.

He could repeat after me with no problem, but when I pointed at simple rhyming words like "cat", "hat". "bat", etc, he couldn't recognize any of them though he has learned the concept of such rhyming words from Leapfrog "Word Caper" DVD. I am extremely patient with kids and I am extremely good with my phonics (I am not boasting but I learned my phonics well since young and my skill get reinforced after I had Renzo, LOL) . So I am very certain Rynus' "inability to read simple words", has nothing to do with my "high tolerance level", nor "strong knowledge in phonics and blending words". It's pretty obvious that my conventional way of teaching him to read by breaking down the words into syllables and sound them out, is just not working for Rynus! All this while we thought that's the way we taught Renzo to read when he was young, but, we could be wrong.

It took me less than 3 minutes to decide on the next course of action. I went straight to download a simple spelling app onto my android phone, leaving Daddy Chan in shock because he knows that I am not in favor of letting kids hold on to mobile devices. I totally couldn't stand kids with their eyes glued onto digital screens at dining tables so although Rynus is hard to pacify when he's outside, I've never resorted to iphone/ipad. Renzo used to spend a lot of time on ipad educational apps when he was 1.5 - 3 years old, and I had to remove ipad from his daily routine when he started to get hooked onto ipad games after he turned 4. So for Rynus, from day one, I made it very clear that he's only allowed to watch educational DVDs on TV, and that's it.

But this time, I realized my own expectation of getting Rynus to read based on a good book for young readers, doesn't seem to be too realistic and feasible. You might think I am asking for too much from a 3 years old. But in all honesty, I know my kids well and Rynus has mastered his 26 letters and their phonic sounds for at least a year, with my experience in coaching Renzo, I am very optimistic that by now, Rynus should be able to read, well at least simple words like "cat", "hat" and "bat" should not be too challenging for him after a few rounds of practicing. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out that way and that made me think again, about how Renzo learned to read when he was at this age?!!

The answer is, maybe, just maybe, spelling is the foundation that helps kids to read independently. That's just my thought because through spelling, they get to break down words to first, middle, and last sound (for basic 3 letter words), and blend them together to spell it out, which in essence, helps them to read those words eventually. And the fact is, Renzo has spent at least 6 - 10 months purely on spelling 3 letter words. Here's a video of him doing it on ipad when he was only 1 year 10 months old.

So, for the very first time, Rynus got to experiment a mobile apps. It didn't take him long to figure out how to use a phone though he was struggling a bit with the touch screen at times. He has not really grasped the concept of middle sound and last sound, I can tell he's doing very well with his first sound. I mentioned in Renzo's blog before, most kids learn the concept of first and last sound before they could figure out the middle sound. For now, I only allow him to play with this app for 10 minutes a day, if, and only if he asks for it. Here's a video of him doing his spelling and victory balloon popping!

I have to admit that maybe in this modern era, it's just inevitable to expose kids to modern technologies, and it's even possible that many kids could only absorb well through such kind of digital interface and digital learning. Rynus was bouncing off the walls when he spelt his words out and got rewarded with a balloon. That's something he doesn't get through holding on and reading from a physical book. But of course we are still putting in efforts to read to, and read with him. Over the past decade, the use of technology in children’s education has exploded, and there are now literally thousands of tablet and smartphone apps created to help kids learn in more interactive and entertaining ways. The debate about using apps for educational purposes is still ongoing, but despite any supposed drawbacks for children, I do see the benefits in digital learning so for now, we are just going to introduce educational apps gradually to Rynus' learning routine, of course with proper control..

his progress in academics, is pretty much like his brother..

This morning, as usual I was chit chatting with my sister about academics and we somehow touched on the topic that academics is not everything, though it's definitely important. I had to confess, I always claim that I am not a tiger mummy and I don't like to force my kids to study, looking at the kids' blogs, it's not hard to find there are many posts and photos about their academics for sure. So yes, I cannot simply relax and let them enjoy a childhood without grilling them a bit on their studies.

But, for Rynus, let's just say we did cut him some slack from day one, just look at how often we talk about his academics here as compared to on Renzo's blog. It could be due to 2nd child syndrome, but also, it could be the fact that Renzo was rather fast in learning and Rynus didn't show much interest till he's about 2.5 years old.

Recently, I start to notice more and more frequently about Rynus' hunger and curiosity for knowledge. He's been repeating the songs he learned at childcare center everyday, though 70% of the time I couldn't understand him as his articulation is still not too clear yet. He tries to speak in full sentences and get extremely excited when we could understand him. He enjoys watching Renzo doing his homework though sometimes he might mark his presence by messing up with Renzo's worksheet. He mumbles and recites and sings along with Dora, Thomas and Tad (from Leapfrog) countless times a day. He gets involved with our conversation with every possible means and seems to enjoy that a lot. He grabs books and reads with us, asks for puzzles and number games during bedtime.


And starting from about 2 weeks ago, he suddenly gripped on his pencil and started to scribble, from numbers to letters to shapes and fruits, I had to dig out the old posts on Renzo's blog about his first writing exercise at home, to confirm that Rynus indeed started writing proper letters/numbers earlier than his brother. That, is quite a surprise to me, because so far besides walking, he's been slower in achieving all his development milestones as compared to Renzo. But that, also serves as a great reminder that every single child is unique in their own way, even for our own kids, we shall never compare them.

Well not to compare the boys, they do have very distinctive characteristics of their own. But interestingly, when comes to academics, they share so much in common!! They both love numbers and alphabets to the extend that they can watch Leapfrog DVDs till they could recite the scripts. They don't even fancy the usual cartoons or movies. They both mastered all alphabets and their phonics sounds, as well as counting from 1-100 before their childcare starts teaching them. They both enjoy reading bus numbers and could easily spend 30 minutes at the bus stop watching buses come and go,  making small cheers after getting their bus number right each time, including the "Off Service" bus!! There's one time Rynus made his favorite bus number "518"with number blocks, my mother saw that and immediately recalled when Renzo was 2, he did the exact same thing but he made "34" instead as that's the bus brings him to his childcare daily back then.

Here's a video of Rynus chanting his alphabets and he memorized that after reading them from an alphabet chart for less than 2 weeks.

So believe it or not, I think at least for academics, our children's learning behavior and learning habit, could be a direct result of our parenting style. Because we are using the exact same way to coach and influence the 2 boys at home and so far the results are pretty much similar despite them having pretty opposite personalities. So for almost 6 years we've been investing time and efforts to learn to be better parents, and help our kids build strong foundation, cultivate their interest and great habit in learning. So far the result is still quite promising based on our experience with Renzo, and I definitely hope what worked for Renzo, will work for Rynus too!

All about sleeping through the night..

About 5 years ago, I wrote a post with this exact same title "All about sleeping through the night" , sharing the struggles we had to sleep train Renzo. For Rynus, I almost couldn't recall much details about his first 1-2 years of sleep training experience. I only remember during my confinement after I delivered Rynus, my sister was joyfully sharing her great experience training her new born (my younger niece who's only 5 days younger than Rynus), by following some famous Gina Ford methods. Trust me, I was really depressed after trying the same method but failed again and again. It didn't help at all when Renzo was still waking up once a night during that period. It's totally no fun for a sleep deprived mom to juggle 2 boys at midnight, and not to mention I need to ensure I don't mess up their feeds, yes both are on the same brand of formula milk but different stages, how challenging is that?!

When Rynus turned one month old, Renzo finally stopped waking up but I knew it's still a long battle to fight with Rynus for sure. I was already counting my blessing because he's easy to handle than Renzo, at least he has 2 naps during the day although nightwaking is a must too, of course not as frequent as Renzo. So I told myself he probably will be able to sleep through earlier than Renzo. In any case,  I know many people will suggest the "cry it out" method, I know, I've been there, done that. And though I have absolutely no problem coping with night wake ups and busy work schedule next day (I have this amazing ability to fall asleep fast, by fast I meant "counting from 1 to 6" or "singing from A to S", sounds fun right? Not so when I was asked to count or sing to the boys after lights off time, because they have to definitely wake me up as I never fail to coax MYSELF to sleep with my counting or singing), I do have bad headache (luckily morning coffee helps) after more than 5 years of interrupted sleeps.

I admit that at times I have wondered whether I could continue in my efforts to never sleep train my kids. I don't think we should all joyfully leap out of our beds a million times a night to attend to our crying kids, and I am all for gentle ways to encourage our babies to sleep better (cry it out is not a gentle way under my definition). My kids are left to sleep alone in the cot, I am in the same room with them but I never like to coax them to sleep. And pacifier or rocker are not something for my kids as I simply don't want to use them though I understand they work wonders for many other kids. Just that, I don't think when we sign up for parenthood, we can expect to be excused from our responsibility to our children between the night hours of 7pm and 7am. We spend the whole time bonding and connecting with our kids, so why only test that attachment to its absolute limit at night?

So yes, I am with all the moms whose kids could not sleep through the night. I take it as a great bonding opportunity with kids especially for breastfeeding moms,  and all along I believe it's a stage they will outgrow sooner or later, once they are physiologically and physically ready. I always say, in no time they won't even let you hug and carry, so for now, just embrace and enjoy, what's so bad about that?! But recently I had a talk with my mummy friends, one of them shared about some Primary 1 kid waking up for milk at night, which was a real wake up call to me (I seriously need to thank this friend of mine who gave me candid advice, you will know why shortly).

After that conversation, I talked to Rynus about his night feeds. Well as usual he looked confused and not knowing what I was talking about, though he cheerfully nodded his head and agreed that he's big enough and should not wake up for milk at night.

The first night, I replaced his milk with water when he woke up as the usual 2am+. He threw away his milk bottle and screamed "I don't want this!!", "Milk!! I want milk mummy!!". I pat his back and told him no more milk at night please and he cried to sleep back. The crying lasted for just a few seconds. When he was put on the "cry it out" method as a baby, his cry was prolonged, distressed so there's a huge difference here and that's probably what I meant by "psychologically and physically ready". Yes I took that short few seconds of fussing as a sign that Rynus is ready to be off the milk bottle at night. And he woke up again at about 5am and this time I didn't even give him his milk bottle. A gentle pat on his back made him fall back to sleep again.

2nd night, all I need to do was just to pat him..

3rd night, he didn't even wake up..

So indeed, Rynus managed to sleep through earlier than Renzo, alright 2 years 7 months vs. 2 years 10 months, not much a difference, I know...

And just for the benefits of parents out there who are still struggling with night feeds for older kids, probably 2 years and above, I must say there should be only 2 reasons why your kid is still waking up for milk at night (based on my pretty much failed successful experience with my 2 boys)..

1. Your kid is hungry.
Check if they are eating well.

Mine often don't. Indeed Rynus has been asking for milk frequently during the day. And I always just give in to his request on the weekends as he's in full day childcare during weekdays, and school teachers only give them 1 feed during afternoon naps. My reason is because, he is not taking solid well. But indeed it could be a chicken and egg thing. Because he's taking enough milk that's why he is rejecting solid food. And I think kids like him might all have the same problem, they might be chewing well (I can tell from the way he munching on his apple or biscuits), but they just prefer softer food, and to them, milk is definitely the easiest "food" to handle, not to mention it tastes good (sweet) all the time. So if you can't address their night feeds problem, fix their eating habit first. I resorted to feeding Rynus his dinner (soup with rice as he's still rejecting other food) though he can self feed well since a year ago. I know I am going backwards but hey, at least he's eating again this way and it helps with sleep training him at night, so why not?!

Rynus used to eat very well, I still believe it's just a growing up phase because Renzo experienced the same "rejecting food" period for a year. Of course you can say I am finding excuses for my kids, I am a mom who takes cues from my kids and I am soft-hearted anyway, you know that!

2. It's a habit.
Yes it's a habit of the kid, but probably we parents are the ones who encouraged that.

If Rynus is able to sleep through in just 3 days, likely, he's not hungry, he's just waking up as that's his habit. And since we allowed it, so why not?

By admitting to this, I am not saying let's all start to correct our kids' "bad" habit. I am saying I want to thank my friend who gave me that wake up call because otherwise, I might not even know indeed Rynus is ready to sleep through. And for those parents who think sleep training is not going to work because "I tried that before", maybe it's like our case - tried it LONGggg before. Who knows your kid might be ready to sleep through but just waking up for the sake of waking up? So if you have made attempts 6 months ago but to no avail, maybe it's time to give it a shot again.

And now, it's time for me, an all time sleep-deprived full time working mummy, to enjoy some good un-interrupted beauty sleeps, after a whooping 5 years 5 months, FINALLY!!

life has been all good with little Rynus...

Rynus just turned 2.5 years old! Yes time really flies and he has grown so much in the past half a year, though he still pretty much behaves like a baby.

The decision to send him to full day childcare since July, was brilliant, except for the financial burdens of course, as pre-school education is extremely expensive in Singapore. On top of the extra S$680 school fee we need to fork out every month after S$300 government subsidy for working mothers, we are still keeping our helper though her main duty has shifted from caring for Rynus, to purely household chores. Also, I've mentioned before, we are spending almost S$8 dollars daily on cab fare, as neither my mother in law, nor my helper could manage 2 of them with 2 large school bags for almost an hour of bus journey home. Not to forget this little Rynus could put up a stunt of rolling on the ground anytime, anywhere, yes that includes in the middle of the road! I definitely could, yes trust me that's called mummy power! But after a tired day at work, and with the erratic weather here, taxi is the best(fastest) option though not the most economical.

But other than all these, life has been great! We are greeted with cozy house and warm food daily, and after dinner, I get extra 1 hour (saved from the bus journey, or rather from cooking dinner after work) to spend with the kids.

And the best part, Rynus has been doing well in school, and he has learned so much!!

School life:
We had a nice conversation with his teachers during the "meet parents session" last week. Rynus has fully adapted to school environment. Although he doesn't follow instructions all the time, has short attention span, is rather picky on food and often throws tantrums when things don't go his way (sounds like his korkor? Quite!), he still managed to "survive" well for the past 4 months. And his teacher was rather impressed with his enthusiasm with learning alphabets and numbers (sounds like his korkor? Absolutely!).  

Here's one of the observations from his teacher, the "suddenly, Rynus stood up..." part really cracked me up because that's SO OUR Rynus!!!

As expected, he started falling sick more often after he entered full day childcare. Luckily most of the time he takes medicine well, indeed he enjoys feeding himself through the syringe. But he hasn't been eating well at all, he rejects almost all type of food at home, and has been surviving on formula milk, fresh milk, fruit/vege juice and soup most of the time. This is probably the biggest concern I have currently though Renzo had experienced the same phase around this age too. 


And here are more pictures of his wonderful daily life in school..

Home life:
Did I mention Rynus is still having his Terrible Twos? Yes but a rather mild one, especially at home, he's quite an angel. He spends most of his time playing toys and watching TV. Yes I have not imposed any house rule on TV time. I do let them watch daily, especially during weekends. As they spend full 5 days in school every week learning, and playing of course, so time at home is purely fun time! And Rynus has learned such a great deal from TV! He's not interested in cartoons so Disney Junior channel is more for Renzo. Rynus watches Dora the Explorer, Thomas and Friends and whole Leapfrog series.

This is what he did last night while daddy was reading with Renzo, totally out of the blue. He was trying to sing the Leapfrog A-Z alphabet song that sounds like "A says [a], A says [a], every letter makes a sound the A says [a]...", and when he sang "T says [t], Tic Tac, I was rather surprised.

Dora won his heart totally during the past few months and sometimes he shouts Spanish words, such as Azul (blue), Amarillo (yellow), Rojo (red). Renzo loves Dora too when he was at such age, but he wasn't this interactive like Rynus. Even for a brand new Dora disc, it probably takes 15-20 minutes the most, for Rynus to warm up and be able to answer Dora's questions. He learns animals like "Zebra", "Kangaroo", "Jaguar", "Snake", "Iguana", "Rhinoceros", etc all from Dora discs.

I am sure I've mentioned many times that Rynus couldn't really talk much. But for the past one month, he's been mimicking what Renzo says very often. And interestingly, Rynus has quite good sense of humorous like Renzo. When he accidentally stepped on daddy's leg, he said, "sorry Daddy", and when he did it again, he said, "sorry again!". When he instructed me to build his train track, instead of saying, "Thank you, Mummy!", he said, "Well done, Mummy!". He is also as sensible as Renzo to certain extend. On our daily cab ride home, he waves byebye and says "Thank you uncle, see you tomorrow taxi!" each time, but when he notices my conversation with the taxi driver is in Chinese (I do that if the driver is listening to Chinese radio station), Rynus says "谢谢 uncle!" before he gets off the car. And once when I was frowning at Renzo for taking too long to shower, Rynus walked over to me, held my face with his hands, looked into my eyes, then pat my head and said "Don't worry mummy, don't worry!".

Outdoor:
Rynus gets extremely upset when we have to leave him at home with our helper. The last time we had to do that, he refused to talk to us after we returned home. Instead he leaned on my chest and zoned out for a long period of time, I felt that he was angry with me. So recently we've been trying our best to bring him along whenever we go out. He can soon prove to us, it's not the wisest decision because the moment he gets out of the house, he starts running about and it's impossible for him to sit still for a meal even.

We brought him for his little cousin's full month celebration recently, throughout the 3 hours, we had to take turns to run, climb, jump up and down with him outside the restaurant, while Renzo sat by the table enjoying the food. So nowadays bringing Rynus out for grocery or food, is basically a challenge, instead, bringing them for outdoor activities seems to be a much better choice for Rynus. He's not afraid of trying new things and I am sure soon we will need to send him for some swimming lessons as he simply loves water.


So in a nutshell, Rynus has been doing extremely well, except for those occasional rolling on the floor episodes, he's been bringing us so much joy and fun everyday! I shall end this post with the a recent video of him reading his favorite Dora book together with daddy, he finished the story with "The! End!" when he noticed they are at the last page of the book. Little cute cute is a big boy now, and, still just as cute especially his voice!!

it's hard to get angry...

Pout...

hide...

sob...

That's what he does whenever he realizes he's going to be punished for mischievous behaviors.

So, tell me how?! With this innocent face, he can get away from scolding and spanking, very easily...

Rynus has officially entered into his TERRIBLE TWOS phase just recently (around 2 years 3 months). I know some parents do not believe in such a thing called terrible twos, which is a period in a child's social development (typically around the age of two years) that is associated with very defiant or unruly behavior. Well, we've blogged about his korkor's terrible twos multiple times before and now, it's finally his turn. 

 

I won't say his temper tantrums are as bad as Renzo's, because in general Rynus is rather a happy go lucky baby whereas Renzo was way more demanding.  And usually Rynus only requests for food, though sometimes we experience other episodes such as, he refuses to put on his diaper and clothes, or he refuses to be carried in the supermarket but insists to wander around on his own,  or he jumps up and down the sofa, bed, playmat, basically any flat surface he's able to find, well yes that certainly includes tables and chairs. 

But overall he's rather a "tougher nut to crack" as compared to Renzo because his attention span is way shorter. It's extremely hard to get him sit still and finish a meal, I definitely blame myself for not cultivating good table manners, but he's not like Renzo who can sit down quietly for hours to play alphabet puzzles on ipad, he might give it a try for the first few minutes, but the moment he realizes that he's not able to complete the puzzle independently,  he will give up and fuss around again. And any scolding or reasoning, thinking corner or time out method just doesn't seem to work on him at all. In addition, if we raise our voice to Rynus, Renzo will stop us immediately by telling us: "Cannot shout at didi! Cannot get angry with didi! Later didi will cry then how?!!".

So as of now, getting angry with Rynus, is just not easy! But that doesn't mean we do not "suffer" often from his terrible twos episodes, just that all we could do for now, is to (again) patiently wait for it to end, hopefully in another 6 months to 1 year time!!

Learning from educational DVDs

I've mentioned many times in this blog about the rather slow speech development of baby Rynus as compared to his elder brother Renzo. After he started full day childcare since July 01, we've finally seen some pretty good progress recently.

Just like Renzo, Rynus has been picking up knowledge really fast through educational DVDs. I confess, I do give them ample TV time at home since they are in school the entire day, and they are not given Ipad or Iphone for apps, games, youtube etc. But most importantly, I do see them learning A LOT from just Disney Junior and educational DVDs.

In fact Rynus is not quite a fan of Disney Junior at this age, Renzo only developed his interest since he's about 4. So they both enjoy Thomas&Friends, Dora the Explorer, Leapfrog series and Hi5 the most, well actually they do not have anything else except for some Chinese sing a long song tracks. We only have 3 Dora, 2 Thomas, 1 Hi5 and a bunch of Leapfrog (maybe more than 7) at home, and they could watch again and again without getting bored at all.

About half a year ago, we realized that Rynus has learned all his alphabets and phonics sounds from Leapfrog. He could read the letters with clear articulation, except for letter W. Sometimes, he mixes up the sound of certain letters and their phonics sounds but that's not too big a concern for now. And he enjoys singing ABC or the Leapfrog alphabet song with us before bedtime. Slowly, but steadily, he progressed on to counting numbers. I seriously think both of my boys love numbers, unlike their mother. I still remember how we taught Renzo 1~10, and then 11~20 with a number poster hanging on our wall, but for Rynus, he picked up 1~20 on his own from Leapfrog, almost effortlessly. And whenever he is in good mood, he counts. Initially he often skips a few numbers like 7(for some weird reason many kids skip number 7 when they first learn to count, including Renzo), 13, 14, 16.. But since about 2 weeks ago, he's been doing better and better, and no more skipping of numbers!!

Here's a clip of him happily counting from 1 - 20, though I only managed to take out my phone camera when he's at number 4, and he repeated 15-17 at one point. 

 

If I say Renzo has amused us by memorizing train names and numbers from Thomas&Friends and talking in British accent like the fat controller when he's 2, then Rynus has definitely amused us by interacting with Dora and Boots with zero communication breakdown when he's 2!! Watching Dora DVD with him is probably the most fun and relaxing bonding experience. One moment you see him sitting next to you on the sofa, hiding his head under your arm while staring at the TV, next moment, he rushed to the TV like a space shuttle and "press" the answers on TV as if he's using a touch pad, and before you know it, he's back to the sofa snuggling under your arms again, waiting for the next chance to run to the TV, pretty busy to be honest...

And, once I saw him washing his hands in the washroom and Dora was asking, "Which path should we take, blue, yellow, or purple?" on TV further away in living room, he shouted, "YELLOW!!"... Trust me, he got it absolutely right!!

Though he's been trying to "participate" in the 5-A-Day-Books routine we set up with Renzo every evening, Rynus is still learning most of his stuff through educational DVDs, he can say words like "Icy bridge", "Purple", "Circle", "blue mountain", "mama duck", etc, and some Spanish words too, all thanks to Dora & Boots!!