It’s quite amazing to observe how Luke’s been soaking up words and developing his language skills. His vocabulary is exploding! I guess in this stage he’s focused on learning to pronouce nouns while he’s able to recognize expressions, commands, etc. Apart from mama and dada, he’s able to say anything from ball, bread, milk, boat, bear, duck, dog, cat, flower, moon, cheese, get it, etc. That’s the good news; the bad news: approx. 60% of his vocabulary is Taiwanese. So I’m learning as much as he does to stay on top of what’s going on. It’s funny how the nuances in understanding and meaning make a difference though. Examples: A bubble is a ball (and isn’t it, kinda?), but so is a circle. A bird is a duck (can you blame him?). Every drinkable liquid is milk. Makes you realize how abstract and quirky some language concepts are.

Luke has officially entered into toddlerhood, which means he’s testing our patience on a permanent basis (I wonder where he got this from?). And usually he wins. No positive reinforcement or threats seem to make a difference, maybe with exceptions, of time outs, which are somewhat annoying for all parties involved. That’s until Susan brought home a little cute stuffed monkey from a business trip. If you squeeze it, it makes a screaming monkey sound. This thing scares the living crap out of Luke! Just the word “monkey” makes him all queazy and uncomfortable and he starts to grimace. When I pick up the monkey, it puts the fear of God in him and he is close to tears. As soon as it makes a sound and screams, he completely loses it! This has shifted the power balance in the family and put me back in charge - I love it! When the monkey is hanging somewhere (its arms form a loop) and Luke’s in the same room, he keeps pointing at it and needs assurance that it’s okay to coexist with it (it’s like the Grudge is in the room). And yet he’s fascinated by the monkey and sometimes tries to touch or hug it while laughing nervously before fear takes over. Anyways, for now we can suppress obnoxious behavior with monkey threats. I need to make sure he keeps looking at me as the “God of the monkey”, the only being who can control and handle the scary monkey...

His recent spout of misbehaviors (spitting out food, throwing milk bottles, being impatient and irritable, etc.) not only robs us of our last nerves, it also makes me repeat the exclamation “... and that’s why you don’t have any siblings!” So now you know. He had his chance to have a brother or sister, but now... NOT!