My little boy is sick today. You have a bad cold, congestion, runny nose, a bit of a temperature, and a cough. The tough part is we try to get you to drink water, orange juice, soup, but you refuse “No, no, noooooooo!” We try all kinds of ways to get you to drink, “Watch Daddy drink, now you drink some!” or use Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cup, or fun little straws which you like, but when you are not feeling good, none of these work to get you to drink. I try to reason with you, I saw, “You gotta get that bad stuff out of you” or “If you drink water, you will feel better” but you just say no. If we tried to force you to drink that wouldn’t work at all, you’d get upset and spit out the water. So we keep trying to get you to relax and trust us, we aren’t gving you medicine or anything yucky you’d hate, just water or OJ to help you pee out the stuff making you sick.

I went and bought a humidifier for the room. This should reduce the dryness of the room and help you to sleep. I bought a little German made one that is really nice. Just needs a water bottle of water to get it going. I love German craftsmanship, it’s smart and solid. Even the button on this little device feels nice to turn. It’s not cheap, but you feel good when you use it.

Last time I wrote, we were still in China. We had a big move to the USA and a lot as happened to our little family since then. Just flying across the Pacific ocean and arriving in Arizona has been a huge change we’ve all had to get used to.

The weather and climate is very different from China. Nowadays you sometimes say “Taiyang” or “Re” to your mommy because the sun is in your eyes or it’s hot. In China, we almost always travelled by taxi or subway, occasionally train. Nowadays we always get in the truck, and put you in the child seat. You never sat in a child seat before in China, though it may have been comfortable for you, that made me nervous because it was unsafe.

Since we left China, you’ve turned 2 years old! You enjoy going to the park and playing on the “jungle gyms” or children’s playground equipment. You love going up the ladders and sliding down. You like rolling a ball down the slide.  You like being on the swings, often we sing or count while you swing, and you learned to say “stop” when you want to get off. I am impressed by how you want to challenge yourself. For example, there was a high steep web-like ladder you had to climb to get to the top of the jungle gym. It was quite scary for a 2 year old, and even though you were crying because it was scary we couldn’t get you off of it because you were absolutely determined to go to the top. So step by step you did it and climbed over the rail above our heads. You’ve fallen off some of the ladders at the park a couple of times, though we catch you, but you still bump your head and get upset. That didn’t deter you from going back up the ladder later and fortunately  you learned to watch your step and hold the safety rails better. Its hard for me to watch sometimes because I’m scared for you, I want you to be safe and not get hurt, but I know you’ve got to try, you are really determined and can do it.

We go to the library and book stores sometimes. I like the library, all the free children’s books. Sometimes we borrow 10 or more at a time. Surprisingly, you most enjoy the science related books, specifically Volcanoes, Rocks, and Space. We read one book on Volcanoes and you were hooked. Now you already say words like “lava”, “magma”, “mantle”, “core”, “ash”, and “Volcano”. For words you don’t know or can’t pronounce, you have created your own word called “Dadu”. For example you will will say the names of the planets except Mercury and Jupiter, because you have a hard time saying them, so you call both of the “dadu”.

You really like to play with sand at the park. We got you some shovels and buckets and you will go and play with those for awhile. Grandma created a little sandbox for you to play in in the backyard. Grandma said as soon as you say it your smiling and giggling. You’re very friendly with the other kids at the park. You often say “hi” and smile. Sometimes other kids will come and talk or play with you too.

I find it amazing how much you like rocks. Lately we have gone to some local mountain parks and you will often pick up rocks and look at them. You are very curious about them. I’ll ask you what shape they are, or what color, or how they feel, but I don’t know how to classify them beyond sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic. Hopefully, you will learn geology in the future and better understand.

I’ve tried to balance your activities. For better or worse, you really like the iPad. I find the iPad good for learning some things, but it seems to be quite addictive. Same with Youtube. I rather we read books together or go to the park to learn and explore.

We have fun painting and drawing sometimes. You like to paint…what else? Rocks! We’ve tried finger paints, face paint and water colors too. You use brushes as well. You enjoyed painting daddy much more than getting yourself painted.

You love the ABCs. We often sing the ABC song together. At two years and two months, you know all 26 letters, and can repeat them from heart. We spell may words together such as “mama”,”space”,”sun”,”car”, “cat”, “apple”.

We sing a song sometimes called “No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed!” along with movements.

Last night was so cool. You pointed at yourself and said “happy”. We had learned the words happy and sad from a book a few days ago, but suddenly you just pointed to yourself and kept saying “happy”, “happy”, and smiling.