Almost Four

XX is less than a month to being 4 years old! To me, that's officially the age my Baby X can no longer be called a toddler. Next year, he begins official schooling. Right, not playschool, not nursery but kindergarten. It will be a significant milestone.

Looking at XX nowadays, I just can't help but notice the changes in him. Not just physically taller, his face has changed too. Well, he's still very adorable but his face seemed to become more boyish. Or maybe it was his facial expressions, gestures, language and behaviour that have matured so much.



A most recent photo of XX



Of course, I'm happy. My job as carer is getting easier. He feeds himself, on most days. He sleeps now in a separate room, with his brother. He doesn't have to hold my thumb anymore to sleep but I need to spend at least 5 mins in bed with him before he sleeps. He doesn't wake up in the middle of the night anymore but reports to my bed at first light.

I can no longer keep up with his progress in my blog as he surprises me everyday with his abilities. In the area of toilet training, he's almost completely independent. He goes to the loo like a big kid and did away with the training toilet seat some time ago. I even taught him to climb onto the toilet himself using a step stool and I only had to help him with the cleaning of backside. One day, he went all the way and even cleaned his backside himself! I am amazed at his independence but I'm not sure about his ability to do a good job. To be safe, I wiped his backside again.

In the linguistics department, the four year age gap between KK and him has almost vanished. Now the two of them can have very engaging conversations, about their favourite topics like LEGO, Spongebob, Iron Man and Ben 10. XX even have very engaging conversations with me, telling me what he saw in the cartoons and how he wished he can have this toy on the advertisement. His volcabury is still limited but I can understand him perfectly. Recently XX's learnt to express his wishes and desires using "oh, I wish..." If you tell him no, he'll even ask you "why?" He's no longer the 'gong gong' baby you can safely bring to the toy department and hope not to spend a cent.

Right now, I'm scratching my head about how to celebrate his 4th birthday. I think this might be the last year I can get away from having a party....but there'll definitely be a celebration. XX's done well this year and his progress is worth celebrating.