Wiggly Piglet’s Playpen

I’ve been taking Mckayla to the park two blocks away in the morning. In the morning, the park is pretty packed with people walking their dogs and exercising. Mckayla gets very excited when she sess the dogs running around and runs after them. This morning, we saw a lady pushing a stroller in front of us. I told Mckayla, say hi to the baby when we got close to them. When we caught up with them, I looked in the stroller. It wasn’t a baby, but a little Maltese. Mckayla was so happy when she saw the dog and wanted to get in the dog’s stroller. Later when we were leaving, we saw another dog by the entrance. Mckayla tried to unstrap herself from the stroller and gestured to me to put the dog in the stroller. I think she’s confused, now she thinks strollers are for dogs.

Mckayla’s vocabulary has grown exponetionally since we arrived. She’s picking up more words on daily basis. Her new vaculary of the day is “More”. At the same time, her behavior has also changed. She’s the center of attention at every moment, constantly surrounded by different familiy members wanting to hold her and play with her. She threw a trantrum this morning. She wouldn’t let anyone touch her snack container except for me. Even when her Grandpa tried to open it for her and she got really upset. I had to put her in the corner for a 10 second time out and asked everyone to ignore her. She finally calmed down afterwards.

Mckayla picked up another word. It’s “night night”. It’s very cute when she says it with her little toddler’s voice. But not so cute when she repeats it over and over, but refuses to fall asleep after an hour.

Being the only kid in the family, Mckayla gets all the attention at home. She’s constantly surrounded by Aunties, Uncles, Greataunties, Greatuncles, Grandpa, Grandma, and Greatgrandma. She loves being the center of the attention and loves to perform her “tricks” in front of everyone. She has already shifted her attention away from her Mommy and wants to be with her Grandma, Auntie Margaret, and Greataunt Pony. She whimpers a bit, the whole family turns around to see what has happened to her. She wakes up from her nap, everyone fights to pick her up. Right after I put her down for nap, everyone asks me if she’s going to wake up soon. We definitely will have a hard time readjust Mckayla to life without all the attention when we go home in three weeks.

Mckayla and I got on the plane right after midnight on Wednesday night. In preparation for the trip, we put her down to sleep a little earlier at home and she slept all the way until we got to the airport. After we got on the plane, Mckayla was quite hyper and played until almost four in the morning. She passed out for almost four hours on the plane and was wide awake again. For the rest of the trip, she played with the toys that I brought along and with other passengers around us. She had a great time playing peek-a-boo with the girls behind us. It wasn’t until 45 minutes before we land, Mckayla fell asleep again. But she woke up shortly after we got off the plane. When we got home, my entire family was already up waiting for her arrival and it was only seven in the morning. Even though she didn’t sleep much on the plane but she was fully energized again with all the attention on her. On the plane, she picked up another word, “grandpa” (kongkong in Taiwanese) and she proudly showed it off as she greeted her Grandpa.

Mckayla is picking up more words. In preparation for our trip to Taiwan, I’ve been teaching her to say Greatgrandma, Grandpa, Grandma, Auntie, Uncle, and Greatauntie/uncle in Chinese. Finally, “yiyi” (auntie) and “jojo” (uncle from mom’s side) came out of her mouth last night. I e-mailed my family to tell them Mckayla’s progress. Her Aunties and Uncles are very excited and can’t wait to hear it themselves. But Grandma is little disappointed. She’s been bribing Mckayla with a fat red envelope when she calls Grandma for a while now. “Grandma” and “Grandpa” in Taiwanese are little harder because they have two syllables, “Ama” and Akong. I guess we’ll have to work on that on the plane tonight.

Mckayla’s Greatgrandpa passed away yesterday. We’ll always remember his courage and his love for all of us. We miss you!

Mckayla talks all day long. She babbles non stop and we usually have no clue what she’s talking about.