Wendy and I felt the urgency to spend more time with Yifan these days. Yifan is growing up so quickly. Before we ever realized, Yifan started to walk, to talk (a little bit), and understand almost everything you say.

Yifan Walks

When was Yifan still not able to walk? He used to crawl from a room to another carefully, but not so quickly. For a day, all of a sudden, he stand up and started to walk by himself. Where I was at that time? I remember I am in my US trip at that time. I just thought: “What? How does it mean that the little boy can get to anywhere he wants (in the house) without my help?” Maybe the next question is, when the boy can go very very far away for work without even letting me know…

Yifan Talks

Yifan’s favorite word is “mama”, and “baba”. He looks like you and say “baba”, and “mama” so loudly, as if he wants everyone including neighbors to hear. He points to many things, like dustbin, street lights, and cats – anything he recognized and invites me to checkout the same thing. He feels very happy when I tell him the name of the objects.

Yifan Knows Many Things

Most of the things that you don’t expect him to understand, he understand. Now we can talk with him pretty similiar to talk with an adult.

One word he masters is “Hao” (means OK). With this word, suddenly it becomes a two way communication. He don’t know how to say “Bu Hao”, (No) yet, but that is good enough.

We ask him: “Let’s go to shopping mall, OK?” He says: “Hao”.

We ask: “Let’s buy a small yellow duck for you, OK?” He says: “Hao”.

We ask: “Let me put yourself in the shopping mall, and we go back home for dinner, OK?” He don’t know how to say “No”, but he knows he won’t say “Hao”. If he does not say “Hao”, that means no.

We are master of paraphrasing now. We just tried to turn almost everything into a yes or no question, and many of them, Yifan can understand.

Photo by Wendy Fan, in Xishan of Suzhou

More Time with Yifan? I Promise

I promise that I will grasp every minute with Yifan that I can spend. Most of the times, it may not always interesting, but happiness between a father and son happens during those “little moment”, and small things. A gesture, and a laughter will last for a long time in memory. I need to spend more time with Yifan, to watch him grow up, to watch him learn new things, and take care of him better. Yifan is such a adorable boy, and I need to be with him.