His vocabulary, which includes words he recognizes, understands, says, and reads, has improved tremendously, and he surprises everyday with a new vocabulary. He is starting to put more words together to make complete sentences, and sometimes put 5, 6 words together to make a coherent sentence. Yesterday, my mom went to IKEA and bought him a little igloo tent. He kept crawling in, pretending to sleep saying, "Sleep!" and crawling back out. He wanted my mom to join, so he said, "Alden, 할미 (grandma), all come in to tent." So my mom said, "Grandma's too big," and Al said, "할미 (grandma) too big no. Too big no. Too big no!" Then Joe offered to play with him and said, "How about daddy?" Alden said, "No daddy. Daddy too big." Ha ha. Later, after my mom left the room, Joe asked if Ellie could join him in the tent. Al said, "No. Baby too small."
So most of what he says is in English, I think because English is a lot easier to just lay out words. I am trying to get him to answer me in Korean more, and just love it when he does speak or answer me in Korean. The other day, I was too tired to get up (because Al woke up in the middle of the night, Ellie woke up early in the morning to eat, and I just plain couldn't sleep very well all night), and Alden was trying to get me to get up and play with him like most days... He kept saying, "엄마 (mommy) sleep no. Sleep no. Sleep all done. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up." I just kept lying in bed and sleeping, and he started saying, "일어나 (wake up)." After saying that many times, he saw that I was still sleeping, he said, "엄마, 일어나 주세요 (wake up, please)." That got me right up because it was soooo cute and I just coudln't believe that he'd said that in Korean...
I'm slowly starting to teach him the Korean letters too, and it's not going as well as the English, but I think Alden can at least distinguish Enligh from Korean and vice versa. He can also recognize a few Korean letters and written words.
As far as potty training goes, we still haven't succeeded. I'm kinda taking a break and waiting to see if he'd want to go by himself. Once in a while, I will get him to sit on the toilet with no success. I've figured out that the problem with Alden's potty training is not that he is too young, it is that he is just plain too smart! For some strange reason, he doesn't like to go in the toilet. And even though he will sometimes sit on the toilet for the candy or the popsicle we offer to get him to sit there, he will not go in the toilet at all. He knows that there are rewards (more candy, praises, ice cream, and most importantly, the Wii - we haven't played the wii in a long time because he's only allowed to play it if he goes in the toilet). However, he will hold as long as he needs or can if he is sitting on the toilet. Many times, he will sit there, enjoy the candy, the attention, games, songs, books, etc., and asked to get down only to pee or poop in the diaper right after. I have no idea how to motivate him to go in the potty, and right now the plan is to just see if he will want to go when he gets a little older... We'll see what happens..
He's also gotten into dancing lately, and he will dance to any song that has a beat and if he has another person to dance with. Most times he head bangs and moves his head up and down - I think because the only place we turn on the music is in the car and he can't move his body in the carseat. He's also starting to sing a little bit too, although a lot of times, he is very off key or just chants and lyrics (kinda like how Joe sings. ha ha). When Alden sings the ABCs, he just reads off from A to Z, and very quicky says, "now I ABCs, next sing with ME!" When we get in the car, he asks for his music. We have a Korean children's song CD in the car, and after listening to it probably 5000 times or more, he is starting to follow along with a couple of songs and saying the lyrics. I'm so excited that he is starting to learn Korean songs!
Alden's favorite TV shows are now Dora the Explorer and Go! Diego, Go! He gets to watch them on my mom's tv, and he always sneaks into my mom's room and makes a really cute face next to the tv, so my mom has to say yes. The shows are the main reason I think his English has improved a lot, and I think I even heard him count to 4 in Spanish the other day... He always asks for Mario story, Star (from super mario) story, and Mario Kart story at night. But lately, it's been either Dora story or Diego story.
I also bought him a few interactive learning CDs from DI like jumpstart, etc. Alden's favorite is called "Arthur's Reading Games." It reads him an Arthur story, and he can click on different things on the page to make them move or talk. He also likes to play this board game where you have to match the words with the pictures to advance on the board.
Now that the weather's warming up, I've been trying to take him outdoors a little more, and he loves to go to the playground. The other day, he went on the swing for the first time since he was less than a year old, and just loved it! He wouldn't get down, and kept saying "Wee!" every time the swing moved forward. He has also gotten very brave with the slides, and goes down them the right way instead of belly down like he used to. He can now go on the tall slides at the playground without any help and loves to go down them too. He's also gotten a lot independent and has become quite extrovert at the playground. He is still very polite and knows to wait until the slide is clear to go down, but is not afraid to get in line or stand up for himself if another kid tries to butt in line or something. (Probably because he can now say, "My turn!" and "Wait!").
Race track!
At the playground
Reading the "Book of Mornin'."
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