Kairat Updates

KAIRAT UPDATES

As usual, I am amazed daily by my child. It is truly a period of changes in his life. It seems as though so many things are being learned everyday that I can’t keep up with them. Listing things I’ve been noticing have been a great way to watch and keep track of K’s growth to share with him when he is older. Recent interests and skills include:

• An obsession with musical instruments is what I’m most amazed by right now.  Kairat seems to have developed a sense of rhythm as he dances to most music he hears. He’s also begun to imitate how to play a number of instruments such as the violin, clarinet, piano, saxophone, drums, trombone,and guitar. He will spend some time strumming on my guitar and loves to play music together with his toy drum and xylophone. His favorite book is The Remarkable Farkle McBride, which is the story of a child prodigy who attempts a number of musical instruments until he finds his true love as a conductor. At my uncle’s birthday party, Kai spent the bulk of his time making friends with the band (40’s music) and dancing to the music. He prefers watching old reruns of the Lawrence Welk Show to Sesame Street. We are getting a piano when our addition is completed and a child’s guitar is on Santa’s list.
• Talking- this child is quite verbal. This month he has moved to multi-syllable words and sentences. Three is typically the most he strings along but his vocabulary becomes more clear each day. It really is amazing that I can understand almost everything he is trying to say. What truly cracks me up is that he sings, too. Anyone else hearing his little voice may not realize that he is singing, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, but I know what it is. As we were walking out of his daycare yesterday he exclaimed, “Moose, moose,” as clear as a bell towards a moose poster.
• Teeth- When we first met Kairat and up until his first birthday, he was pretty much toothless. He still remains slow to “cut teeth” and is now chomping successfully with about twelve and seems to be still waiting only for his four lateral incisors.
• Kitchen help– K enjoys pulling his little chair up beside the kitchen counter to “help” in the preparation of meals or with dishes. “Stir, stir,” becomes a request if there is any liquid with a spoon nearby and I usually need to have a spare dish towel for my little assistant.
• Daycare– After about two months in daycare, Kairat now cries when he has to LEAVE. For the first two months, he would cry whenever he saw me arrive to take him home. (So emotional.) Now when I arrive I get a big smile and a tour of whatever he happens to be playing with.
• “Hand, hand,” is the phrase that Kairat uses when he wants to show me something or have me play with him. He grabs my hand with his little one and drags me to whatever he is interested in at the moment.
• The Moon– is another obsessions. All books that have a moon in them are studied extensively and are unable to be read because of Kairat’s wanting to just look at pictures of the moon. Whenever we are outside or driving in the car he will, at some point, start looking for the moon and asking, “Moon? Moon?” Perhaps we have a future astronaut on our hands or at least a meteorologist.
• Busy, Busy, Busy- K is a non-stop, fun-loving child who enjoys playing and exploring new things. His latest is to take all of his Match Box cars and line them up, end to end, and pretend that they are a train. I’m also impressed with his new puzzle completing capabilities. It seems like overnight that he has figured out how to fit wooden shapes in the prefabricated holes for which they are meant. He is quite proud of his achievements, as well, and usually follows any successful task with a self-congratulatory, “Hooray!” Building towers is also a new craze that he is enjoying though he gets very frustrated if he can’t quite make his stacking cups stack they way he wants.
• “Mummy, hooray,” is the compliment I get when I’ve done something K likes such as singing a song (completely out of tune).
• Mimicking has become common practice in our household. Whether words or actions, our little monkey loves to mimic and we must now really watch our expressions.
• K is getting SO big SO fast! Almost in 24 month sizes and quickly growing out of the 18-24 month range, this child has gone from being so tiny to the 75th percentile range when last checked.

I could go on and on but this is a quick summary of things we are now seeing and I’m hoping to remember. As people say, “They grow so fast. Enjoy it while you can.” And, oh, we certainly are!!!