Henry loves ‘The Wiggles’! In case you don’t know what or who this is, they are a group of four men from Australia who make programmes and songs for young kids.  A work colleague recommended them, and after only watching a single YouTube video, Qi Lin was hooked. So now there are endless requests for the ‘wig-gle-ser, wig-gle-ser’ DVD all day long. He knows the dances, the hand movements, and can even dance like a turkey with the DVD remote in one hand and the TV remote in the other. Needless to say, it’s pretty cool.

In fact, Qi Lin loves all types of play now. He knows how to use the outside exercise machines intended for old grannies despite their massive size (not the grannies, who are actually rather small), and he is particularly taken by basketball. He bounces his pink ball and can make three or four in a row, but as is typical of all kids, needs to be watched. The choice-favourite might be mummy or daddy, but he also wants his toy pig to check out his new skills too and will position him on the armrest facing his direction. Should the pig be turned for whatever reason, he will stop and re-angle him for a better view.

Skill-wise, Henry knows all about money and what to do with it. He wants to pay shopkeepers, and can easily recognise the difference between the denominations. And to make matters worse, he also knows it can be found in pockets and in our money bag. Thankfully he hasn’t tried to rip or draw on it yet, but that day might be coming. Drawing is a new skill for Henry, and he will happily scribble with pens and pencils. Actually, from about age-one Qi Lin had taught himself to hold a pencil (correctly), but his creative juices haven’t started flowing yet. So watch out walls, it won’t be long.

We have a long-running joke with Henry about smelly feet. When it hits the late evening, Qi Lin starts asking for his feet to be washed, and loves the experience of dipping his toes in the steaming water. In fact, he did something recently that impressed daddy a lot. The fish tank was being washed in the kitchen and there was water on the floor. Henry came in, stood on it accidentally, and told daddy the words ‘water, sock, foot’ in Chinese. He left and returned two minutes later without any socks. When daddy came out of the kitchen, he saw Henry’s socks drying on the radiator. It’s evident that Qi Lin already understands at a deep level everything going on around him.

In terms of language, Henry can now recognise the general sound differences between languages. We have a DVD of a popular Japanese cartoon called ‘Konan’, which also has a Chinese audio option. Recently when watching it in Japanese, Qi Lin protested loudly that he didn’t like the sound, and wasn’t calmed until it was switched to Chinese. He has a genuine feel for different sounds, so we are capitalising on it by teaching him lots of new words. And because he knows so many, I won’t write the list on the bottom of the blog anymore. Sorry!

Qi Lin loves spicy food. At such a young age, he is extremely capable of handling all types of cuisine, but spicy food is a favourite. To be clear here, I am not talking about food which might tingle or even make you sweat. He loves hot, hot, hot! The degree of spiciness he reached is far higher than our foreign neighbours, and pretty close to our own levels. But best of all, he doesn’t suffer from a painful tummy the next day. That lucky, lucky boy.