HAPPY 30th MONTH BIRTHDAY, NAUFAL!!

Last weekend my cousin came over to visit my mother’s house, her eldest daughter baked some cupcakes and shared it with us. When we arrived at my mum’s that evening, Naufal saw the cupcakes on the dining table. At first he didn’t want to try them. To lure him into trying them we lit a candle and stuck it on the cupcake. Everyone started singing Happy Birthday to him, and he would excitedly blow out the candle.. with a sweet smile on his face he would say “Again!”.. so we repeated it all over again.. after a while he picked up a spoon and happily ate his “birthday” cake.

This morning when I got to the office I realized that again it is the 17th.. which means that it is Naufal’s 30th month birthday!!!

So what can he do now?

Well, he can walk, run, jump, balances on one feet, dance and sing. Memorizes the alphabets, numbers and Arabic alphabets. Able to recite “doa makan” and some “zikir”s and simple “surahs from Al-Quran”.. He is able to brush his own teeth, with little assistance. With supervision he could take his own shower, washes and dries his own hand after meals. He can wear his own pants, in fact he sometimes puts his pants on over his pants (which makes him literally look like superman, hehe).. He’s still not potty trained, we haven’t really tried yet. I think when he starts sleeping in his own bed we’ll start. I hope his bed will be delivered this week.

The best thing about this age is that he wears his emotions on his sleeves, his kisses and hugs are so sincere. Unconditional LOVE. And your heart would just melt when he sings “I love you, you love me, we are one happy family, with a great big hug and a kiss from me to you, won’t you say you love me too…” Ahhh, I hope he will always be this cute!!

Some of the things he would say are really charming, unintentionally funny and most of the time surprising to me. He is obviously learning English at his kindergarten, once he was eating something and once it finishes he turns to me and said “Ibu, I want some more!” in his regular sing-a-song tone. The funny thing is that he picked up the local Malaysian “LAH” slang too.. whenever he’s correcting me he would use it. Like yesterday, when we arrived home from my mum’s at 10pm, I told him that the neighbour’s kids are already asleep. However, the neighbours are obviously entertaining guests and their door and gate was wide open. Upon hearing our car driving in, their kids ran out calling after Naufal. Naufal turned to me “Ibu, belum tido lagi LAH!!” hahah…
I noticed that he is also interested in music. Like on our last trip to Penang, he was strumming his uncle’s guitar and excitedly singing nursery rhymes. Perhaps we should get him exposed to musical instruments.

There are times when he can be challenging to manage too, he’s starting to make whining sounds. I know that it is not crying, and so I would always tell him to stop, cause I don’t want it to turn into a habit. I would always have to distract him so that his attention is shifted to something else.

I recently noticed that he begins to have fears. Last weekend, he was afraid of the CNY dragons. He used to like it, but this time he is afraid. He was also afraid of the moving animal toys that he has in his room. Again, he used to like it when he was younger. Perhaps this is all part of his emotional developments. I will have to explains to him that there’s nothing to be scared off.

Anyway.. HAPPY 30 MONTH BIRTHDAY NAUFAL!! WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH...