48 months

March 5th 2012

6 months have passed since last entry
Ran ran has now celebrated her 4th birthday and has passed several milestones.
She is now taller, stronger, more articulate and her speech in both Chinese and English is more easily understood. In times of misunderstanding she has learnt, in English at least to either rephrase her comment or speak more slowly. She now has as good as if not better understanding of English as her mum and uses native colloquialisms she has learnt from her story books or DVDs.

She has grown taller, now 103cm, but mostly this seemed to have been in body as she still had difficulty in peddling her bike, her legs were still too short to turn the pedals a full circle. However this has changed, she can now pedal fully and is able to cycle more quickly.
Around the house there is very little that is now beyond her reach, light switches, doors, cupboards and shelves are now accessible to her with ease.

Although she had a busy year modeling there seems to have been less opportunity now for casual family snap shots, her phot album is not growing as fast as she is.

Shoe Confusion

Thursday, Sept 1st 2011

Seems a long time since i wrote anything here.
At 36 months Ranran's learning continues to increase and she is more active, more inquisitive and demands more time.
Prior to her 3rd birthday she could not really sort out left from right so getting shoes on the right feel was more good luck, most of the time she had them back to front.
But around the time of turning 3 she seemed to grasp the idea and it wasn't long before she was hitting 100% success rate in getting her shoes on.
However a week ago I notice she was getting it wrong again, and now she has regressed back to the point where now, more often than not, her shoes are on the wrong feet.
Seems this "knowledge" has been dropped from her memory for the moment.
Of course the "teacher inside me" starts to wonder if and how this has any effect on our learning generally, especially when it comes to language.

Beauty Time

August 2011

Dress up #2

July 2011

Well, here I am again wearing one of my mummy's dresses
I think it looks rather cool on me, especially with her tangerine shoes.
But it is still just a little long for me
Can you imagine what it looks like on her!

Fisher Price

May 2011

Shooting for a Fisher Price Toys promotion,

Tea Party

May 2011

We went to a tea party, lots of well dressed people wandering round sipping wine and listening intently to classical music.
It was all rather boring, but then I found a little car so I was happy!

Sleeping

May 2011

Almost an Angel?

May 2011

Drawing

May 2011

Email to my sister in USA

April 2011

Nail Polish

Tuesday, April 4th 2011

I have a big day today, a very important job so I need to get myself ready.
First I have to paint my toenails, extremely important, so a nice shade of pink............

now my fingernails, same colour of course!

Great!
Finished.
Now, just the shoes.
Very stylish, little heel, strappy sandals, just right for summer cat walks.
How do I look?
Hmmm, wait a moment!
Something is missing!

look-a-like

April 2011

Going... going..........

April 19th 2011

Meditating

Posing

April 16th 2011

Peace?

April 14th 2011

Isn't this a lovely, peaceful image?
A sunny warm, day, Child's playground for under 5 year old's, lovely smiling trains, an age of innocence and fun.
Ideal for a child's development.
So can someone with more than just a peanut for a brain tell me why the guns?
What sort of sick society is this?

New Shoes

Tuesday, April 4th 2011

Summer is coming so we need new shoes!

It is interesting to see how Ranran is changing, not just physically but emotionally and intellectually.
It wasn't so long ago that the clothes we chose and bought were worn without argument, but she now has her own, very strong, ideas on what she likes and what is fashionable, or in her words; "not beautiful."
Her language skills have also grown, her English is now on par with her native peers and it is interesting to see the same difficulties and errors manifesting in her speech. She has trouble, as do many native children, with L, R and V sometimes, so rabbit become wabbit and little becomes wittle.
Grammatically she moved quite quickly from first person stage, Ranran [is] hungry, it [is] Ranran's, to using pronouns but now everything seems to be "HER." Why is her crying?
She has developed an even stronger attachment to some of her soft toys and a couple have emerged as favourite with one Teddy playing the role of "Baby" who she dresses, wraps feeds and carries around with as much tenderness as a real mother.
She now escapes into her own world more frequently and will play for hours with her make believe characters or "read bedtime stories" to them reflecting much of what happens in her real world.
However like most of her generation she is technically quite savvy and delights in using her mums phone to take photos and hold conversations, either real or imaginary. She is also fully versed in computer and video basics and can recognise M for mummy, D for daddy and P for Peter on the keyboard and in documents.

Ranran

Tuesday, March 5th 2011

Parents Magazine, GAP Clothing Company, March 2011

My Birthday

Tuesday, March 5th 2011

Today I am three years old and this is what I did. We went to The Magic Bean House and then dinner and play at Solana. I love my new dolly, she eats and talks.

Almost 3

Tuesday, March 4th 2011

Today is the last day of my life as a 2 year old.
Tomorrow I will be 3!
"Happy Birthday to me....Happy Birthday to me,
Wow, am am getting old!
Maybe I should start thinking about getting married?
Or maybe not.

Growing UP

Tuesday, Feb 22nd 2011

The little girl is growing up. Since Christmas she has become more confident, more daring, pushing her limits and taking more risks. She can now hop, jump, skip and balance on one foot. She also enjoys a rough and tumble with daddy, squealing with delight as they fight on the floor or the sofa.
Kindergarten has taught her to pull faces to try and frighten people and she enjoys being chased or made to jump! She is now more fiercely independent than 2 months ago and wants to do to everything herself.
She is also self generating her own language using her base skills and knowledge, albeit not always correct. As an example, she knew what she wanted to say in Chinese translated to "open the light" and so this became her English, worked out by herself. Likewise, she enjoys cutting up paper but didn't know the English name for the tool, so probably based on the fact she knew she was cutting, they became "Cutters" not scissors.

Lantern Day

Thursday, Feb 17th 2011

Daddy and I went to Solana tonight to see the pretty lights, I hope you enjoy them too.

Waking Up

Tuesday, Feb 15th 2011

A cold Beijing morning

Arriving Back

Monday, February 14th 2011.

Arriving back at Beijing airport, a little bit shy on first meeting........

Leaving

Monday, Jan 31, 2011 Posted by Tiger

All dressed up, waiting to catch the plane for her Spring Festival trip to Shandong.
I was very proud of her as we said goodbye at the airport. I knelt down to hug her and for a moment as she looked up at me with her huge eyes I thought she was going to cry, but she remembered what I had told her and simply said "Daddy's in my heart" hugged me, turned and walked off through the exit gate.
Later as I watched as the plane take off and then grow smaller and smaller it was hard to imagine that, some where sitting in that tiny thing, was another tiny thing.
I watched as it climbed higher and rapidly diminished in size, it seemed in my mind as if she was also growing smaller
Maybe it is something we don't think, or don't want to think about, we just trust our loved ones into that small piece of tin tube and cheerfully wave them goodbye.

GAP Fashion

Tuesday, Jan 22nd 2011

Parents Magazine, GAP shoot.

New House

Sunday, September 2010 7:27 am

Qingdao Beach

Sunday, April 26, 2009 7:27 AM

August holidays at the beach in Qingdao..