Tomorrow is Colin's birthday - I can hardly believe he's two! He talks so much nowadays and is quite the noise maker. He can make increasingly complex sentences, as opposed to the pidgin he's been spouting for a while. Yesterday, he told his grandmother "Colin yi jing chi bao le" (Colin has already finished eating) after dinner. Noticing a glass vase with roses on the dining table, he told me "hua hua he shuai" (flowers are drinking water). This afternoon I took him to a new park - Burgess Park in Menlo Park which has a nice play area and plenty of open space as well. He ran across the sunlit grass, looking at the birds flying against the brilliant blue afternoon sky, and told me "niao niao fei lai fei" (birds fly back and forth). When I pointed out that it was a crow, he said "wu ya, bu shi hai ou" (it's a crow, not a seagull). We went to the seaside to look at the gulls a few weeks ago so I guess he knows that they look different. Some people were playing softball, and he commented "people da qiu" (people are playing ball). It's really amazing how much he can say nowadays! Uh... I'm sure that very soon, he'll be talking back to me, being sassy etc...

My babysitter, Mrs Fu, called this morning to tell me that her little granddaughter was visiting again and was insisting that they visit Colin, so could they come over? I was very happy to tell her yes. The two children get along so well, even though the little girl is 6 years old. She told her grandmother that she likes Colin better than her older brother because her 11 year old brother is mean to her (ah, siblings! More things to look forward to). He probably doesn't want to play with her because she is a lot younger than him. But Colin really likes her a lot. When they got ready to leave, he cried and held onto her hand, saying "jie jie wan" (sister, play) and "jie jie bu huay jia" (sister don't go home). It was really pathetic. I had to practically pry him off her since he was hanging on to her backpack strap like a limpet. In the end they were forced to take him for a short walk since he had already fetched his own small shoes to go out!