T's Language Development and the Terrible Twos

T's first pair of walking shoes, size 14.5, worn-out after winter 2016

Another lunch-box photo:
homemade steamed bread + rice balls cum homemade salmon sprinkles;
chicken nuggets, broccoli cum mayonnaise, tomatoes and a sausage

T is entering the period of terrible twos.


He has showed sighs of refusing to cooperate in the nursery, although at home it is not unfamiliar at all.

Over the past two weekends, he had been refusing to take nap at home no matter how hard the adults had tried to exhaust him outdoors in the morning. Last Sunday, it took me 1.5 hours try to put him to bed after lunch. Despite that he was obviously sleepy, he refused to nap. Sensing my annoyance, he, timid but clearly speaking up for himself that "不要，不要，ねんねん。" It means, no no sleep literally. The sentence consisted of two languages, Chinese in the first part and Japanese in the second. He appealed to me repeating the sentence, and I gave in.

There can be many reasons behind his wish not to nap. I sometimes wonder if, out of a unjustified sense of guilt for sending him to nursery five days a week, he just wanted to stay awake as long as he could when he was with the parents at home. Having thought in this way, I felt unjustified in my anger...

He picked up the phrase 不要 from a picture book we have been reading together before bed. It is a story about a baby gorilla refusing to go to bed. Since he started understanding the meaning, whenever we turn to the page when the gorilla says no, T would speaks out loud instead the phrase before me. I have been amused and pleased to see his active participation in the reading process. On the other hand, however, when he uses it meaningfully in everyday life, that means there would be more hurdles to overcome to get things done now.