Second child syndrome

Edward and I are both the second and youngest child, and we have both suffered from the “second child syndrome.” Our older siblings have tons of pictures, videos, and stuff from their early childhood. We are lucky to even show up in the background of their pictures. So we swore that we would not do that to our second child … and then we had our second child.

Poor poor Griffin. Not only does he get stuck wearing the occasional girly hand-me-down, but he has considerably fewer pictures and write-ups documenting his development. I did a week-by-week account of Ally’s first year. For Griffin, I think I summed it up in a single blog.

So here’s my (lame) attempt at doing some catch-up.

Stupid (baby) human tricks – Since Griffin was about 22 months old, he could play “Name that Tune” with ~30 tunes, including Mamma Mia, Alicia Keys, and Rent (the Musical). You could play or sing a few notes from any song, and he could name it. It was (and still is) pretty amazing.

Bi-lingual – Griffin was slower than his sister in developing his verbal skills. But in the last few months, it’s really picked up. His Chinese and English are coming along nicely, but it’s especially cute when he mixes them.
• Mama, can you “bao-bao” [pick up] me?
• Can I have some more “je ge” [this]?
• It’s not “ho dai ah” [so big]!

Other cute speech thingy’s:
• Deng yi shiao (instead of shia)
• Dia-dee (daddy)
• Jie-jie’s hitting! (followed by Ally yelling, “I’m not hitting!”)

Morning Knocker – Every morning, we wake up to some gentle knocking. It’s slow and steady and pretty quiet, but it just goes on and on until you walk over to his room. Griffin doesn’t seem to know he can open his door, and he just sits against the door and knocks it until one of us opens it up. Then he springs to his feet and greets us with a big smile.

Puzzle Solver -- Griffin loves puzzles.  Unlike Ally, who felt that puzzles were to be completed just once, Griffin will play with his 12-piece puzzles again and again and again.

He's a boy all right -- This past year, Griffin has had 2 incidents of nursemaid elbow (kinda like a dislocated elbow).  The first one happened when we were playing and dragging both kids around by the hands.  After we let go of his hands, he burst into tears and was clutching his left wrist.  After a consult with Dr. Ah-gu, we rushed to the ER.  They listened to my account of what happened and immediately diagnosed it.  A doctor popped it back into place within minutes, and we were on our way.  The second time it happened, Griffin was (supposed to be) sleeping in his bedroom when suddenly we heard him wailing.  Edward found him sitting on his bed, slumped against the wall and nursing his other elbow.  We recognized the symptoms right away and went off to the ER once more.  This time, they had a harder time popping it in, and they made us get X-rays since we weren't in the room when it happened.   (I think they also do this to make sure it's not abuse or anything like that.)  Anyway, after the X-rays showed no breaks or fractures, the doctor tried once more and successfully popped it back in.  Crazy kid.