Brand Recognition

At the pharmacy last week, Abi waited with Gung Gung to pick up Tai Gung's medication. She pointed to a display stand nearby and said "That's Nurofen". When asked how she knew, Abi replied that there was a circle, so it's Nurofen. (The logo)

My Best Sweet Potato

This funny book was read by Gung Gung to Abi one night. There was a lovely grin on his face every time the woolyman said ... Sweet Potato!

Writing Chinese characters

One day Por Por decided to teach Abi to write her name in chinese characters. They laid out the squared sheets and Abi learnt the first 2 characters (Wong, Mun) Yin, the third character, is fairly difficult and will wakt for another day.

Abi also learnt that chinese words start from right hand side of the page and go down vertically, while english words start from the top left and go horizontally. Of course Pascale practised writing too (just Wong).

Fairy dressup

Abi's fascination with ballet and fairies has had a positive effect on her willingness to change clothes by herself. Every now and then, during a day at home, she will disappear into her room to emerge wearing one of her 2 ballet dresses, complete with ballet slippers. Often she has stripped off her warm jackets and is wearing a new pink or white t-shirt over her thermal underwear. Then Abi starts dancing, usually with arms over her head or standing on one leg (tippy toes of course) with other leg outstretched in an arabesque. Often she will ask her mother to lift her into the air like in the ballet book.

Further on the way to reading independently

During one of the bedtime book readings tonight, Priscilla asked Abi to sound out some words. She managed "best", and "lost", enabling better understanding of the pictures that accompanied the story. She also learnt to read "sweet potato" in a book called My Best Sweet Potato by Rainy Dohaney (really).

Recently during a family lunch, Yun Teoh was observed reading a book to his 3 daughters and Abi. He asked the children how one character could have overcome his problem without having to steal the vegetables - ask, offer something in exchange ... Must try this with Abi's reading.

Cardboard cubby house

The clothes dryer box has been an interesting cubby house for a while. Last week Priscilla decided to cut a few windows and a door into it, to add interest for the children's play. When Pascale and Abigail discovered this accidentally as an aside from their see saw play, they squealed with delight and crawled all around the box and tried out the openings. Abigail started to draw on the box - flowers, circles, wrote her and Pascale's names on the cubby (Abi, Pasgl - her spelling). They even climbed in and out of the windows!

Today Abi took some books into the cubby and read for quite a while. The books were Chinese readers, and she explained the pictures to Priscilla before asking to be read the words.

Afternoon sleeps and food

Lately Abigail has been needing an afternoon nap. When she takes one during her days at home, it's fatal for the parents if this nap occurs later than 3pm cos she is still bouncy at 10pm or once 11pm. If she doesn't nap, as sometimes happens at childcare, she is manic before dinner time and resists the bath/bed routine (usually). When at South St, Abigail sometimes naps until 530pm (!!) and then her bedtime is around 10pm also.

With afternoon tea and dinner, Abi has been really hungry at breakfast and lunches at home, so when she needs food around 330-4pm, it's hard to resist giving her something. But this inevitably spoils her appetite for dinner even if it is served at 530pm. When left to her own devices, Abigail will say she is hungry at around 7pm. So usually she skimps on dinner served at 5pm for Pascale sake, and fills up on dessert after her bath 730-8pm. We have been serving yoghurt, fresh fruit and apple crumble with custard so it's not all bad filling up on dessert. Surprisingly she has eaten beef mince sauce a few times without protesting. Today she tried a bite of wholemeal oat and honey scone as opposed to her usual chees and bacon roll / date scone.

Cousins play

During a family lunch for Auntie Helen from San Francisco at South St (Por Por's flower girl 40+ years ago), Abi got the chance to play with Carol and Yun's 3 girls. They started off shyly with the musical hopscotch and pin the tail on the pony (Abi helped to make it that morning), The 4 headed to the sandpit during Pascale's afternoon nap. They ran and chatted as if old friends, crawling to pick berries from the Nandina bush that Edith was trimming, and finding leaves and sticks to add to the sand pit cakes. They had so much fun telling Tiny B (Lauren) what she couldn't do cos she was too little, and running back and forth with their findings.

As the evening cool took them back inside the house the girls played with the chinese food playset. The inevitable tears came when a train consisting of Jessica and Abi sandwiching Lauren inside a cardboard box crashed, leaving Abi saying that the big sister (Jessica) fell onto her. But overall they had a great time together and Abi went outside to farewell them in their car.

Walk through Leichhardt

Abi enjoyed her family excursion today, with a walk from home to and from Leichhardt Marketplace for lunch. We walked through Hawthorn Canal area which is a favourite area for dog exercising (off leash). Abi walked a bit of the way herself, armed with a little stick and exploring flowers and trees. She said that she liked real dogs (not just dollies) and was interested in the many breeds of dog we saw. She noted some were following their owners while others were on a leash. We watched as one Pekingnese dog did a poo and its owner picked up the treasure with a plastic bag.

The lunch was eaten while we sat outside a record store to watch the Olympics on TV (and Abi also danced to music playing from the store). Teriyaki chicken rice was fed to her but at the end it was too salty and Abi ate some plain bread instead. Her mother bought a book for her and one for Pascale and Abi carried this bag all the way home while seated in her umbrella stroller - even as she was napping!

Lucky

Abigail told her father that Aurora at Union childcare doesn't have any brothers or sisters. Yes, said Chris, she is an only child.
I'm lucky because I have a sister, said Abi. And you are lucky because you have two daughters. And we are always very good, except sometimes I am not!

Invitation

First Abi wrote her name (ABIGALWON). then she added lines from the letters to reach the edge of the paper (just like pre-printed invitations have lines for names of the invitees). She then wrote the letter (initial) of the person that she was going to invite to her party. Rosie, Cody, Papa, Yee Ma, Owen, etc. She even wrote WIG for Wiggles. She especially likes Jeff because he is purple "her best" (favourite colour).

Dancing outfit

It started as a whim by Priscilla to make a flowing wrap around skirt for Abi to throw over her play clothes so she could do ballet at home. After intervention by Por Por who was supplying the craftsmanship, it is now a lined skirt withh waist band and shoulder straps, complete with waist ribbon. Abigail wore it to Macquarie Centre as a normal skirt, in an all purple day (not her underpants tho).

Lines on Mummy's wrist

During afternoon tea, Abi noticed these and asked what they were. She seemed interested when told they were veins that carry blood around the body, and that she has them too. We looked and found some on her hands (bit cold so easy to see veins).

Ballet

The latest craze is for ballet. Abi borrowed an Usborne early readers book (with pictures) on ballet and has been studying the pictures intently. Her mother bought some ballet slippers for her from a ballet shop (Abi was fitted while looking at racks of dancing clothes and watching a DVD of then competition scene from Dirty Dancing), then Priscilla also found a beautiful pink dress at the Pumpkin Patch outlet store for $10 (was $60). Abi's eyes lit up when presented with this dress, and she immediately took off all her clothes (including underpants) to try it on! Luckily it was in the warm bathroom cos the winter nights are nippy inside the house.

Anyway Abi has put on this dress and the ballet slippers everyday for a dance time, usually to Wiggles music that is soft and relaxing. She loves slow graceful music. Abi practises the poses from her ballet library book, arabesques usually, but was also interested in the dance positions for feet and arms. It is all her parents can do to persuade Abi to wear thermal underwear and maybe a jacket as well as the flimsy dress.

Will she be receptive to ballet class? Didn't like the Rhythmworks dance class that combined tap, jazz and ballet with props like ribbons, pompoms, flowers. Maybe cos the teacher wasn't wearing beautiful dance clothes, just rehearsal type pants and t-shirt. The other little girls there were jumping madly and maybe Abi liked it but it wasn't her idea of ballet/dancing?? She did say she only wanted to dance at home, but that was before the dress had been found.

Stories from Mummy

Lately Abi has been resisting going to sleep at night. She asked for a story from Priscilla (probably a good time to tell family history or stuff and to use Cantonese). One night Priscilla was tired and didn't want to tell a story: all the stories have fallen out of my head. Abi reached up on tippy toes and grabbed something imaginary: I grabbed one back out of the sky for you, Mummy.

Who can resist a short story for this girl? Told her about our trip in 1972 from HK to Sydney on a ship. Another night we talked about going to birthday party for both Priscilla's grandfather's on the same day when in HK.

Stranger Danger

The family was at Orange Grove Markets on a saturday morning. On the grassed area were lots of families with children picnicking and playing on the equipment, and some were haveing pony rides. Abi was fascinated with the ponies. She walked around by herself among the trees and people, to get a better look at the Shetland ponies as they stopped in mid-ride to eat grass. Her parents were quick to repeat the lesson on keeping the adults informed on her movements, and to make sure the adults can see her.

This lesson needs to be reinforced esp. at Broadway shopping centre food court when Abi wanders from the table to play on the internet / wi-fi terminal keyboards and parents are distracted by eating and feeding the other child. But Abi is quite amenable to the instruction and after being told she walked to several places just a bit away from the family's table, asking "can you still see me?" to check her boundaries I suppose.

One night soon after these episodes, Abi took her turn telling a story to her mother. Our family went for a walk up Lamb St and a strange woman came to the door while we were gone and wanted to come into the house. The family returned and found this woman, and told her to go away cos we don't like strangers in our house.

Cemetery

Went to Northern Suburbs cemetery to visit the graves of Priscilla's deceased grandparents.

Abi was curious. Why are they here? Because they died. (She knows that dying means you go away and don't come back). Why did Por Por's mummy die? Because she was very sick and the doctors in the hospital couldn't make her better.

Abi became quiet and maybe a bit sad. She didn't want to not come back, or not to be able to have fun with everyone. She didn't want people to die.

Priscilla said that everyone dies, but not for a long time yet, and we can have fun together for a long time yet. After that we will all go to heaven and God will look after us, and we will see each other again in heaven. Hope that Abi doesn't mull too much and become sad over this topic. Por Por didn't want this topic to be broached but what can one do when visiting a cemetery with a small inquisitive child?

Good memory of what has been said

Twice now Abi has surprised her parents with her memory of casual conversation a while ago. Once was when Priscilla described her routine getting Pascale to lunch then Gymbaroo while fitting in lunch. Abi corrected Priscilla on the time for leaving the house "quarter to twelve not eleven". How did she know? You said it before.

Today Abi said that again when Priscilla talked about

Sometimes Abi will ask about things the thread of which was talked about days ago. Like how Jocelyn's baby was born in the lift and Kum Por had to clean it.

Counting Song

Priscilla was starting a counting song and Abi decided to play too. She asked her mother to be quiet and kept singing herself. One to Ten with body parts, the number of which was obviously wrong. Eg. 7 legs 8 bums 9 eyes etc.

Nurse Abi

Owen was sick with sinusitis and had just come to Por Por's place after visiting the doctor. He was going to take some medicine and Abi knew exactly what to do since she had just been sick herself. She patted Owen as he lay on a bed, saying that she was looking after him. She wanted to find some jubes so he could have some after his medicine. Later she popped in to check up on him as he slept.