Fine Motor Skills

August 17th

As we were about to go out to buy our groceries today, P had the idea of doing origami. Since I am preoccupied in preparing to go out, I told him that he has to do this by himself this time without calling me for help. He said yes and I was gladly surprised. He chose to do a simple whale with 2 stars for difficulty (with 5 being the most difficult). The folds that he had to do were really simple and he finally had the confidence of doing it all by himself save for the last part of the tail which called for a "hood fold". He still had to ask me about it but for the most part he figured it out on his own. His folding quality was not so bad at all. He was able to fold neatly. My heart was silently rejoicing to see that his fingers are finally catching up in doing small tasks such as origami. I am looking forward to the day when he'll try to do higher difficulty level of origami. (Was he challenged with Fiona's confidence in trying it on her own?Just a thought.)

Another milestone today for his fine motor skills development is the use of chopsticks. Except for his Father who's almost not that familiar in using forks (oops! he must not see this!LOL), we generally use spoon and fork for eating. I do prefer using chopsticks with spaghetti, kimchi and some food sometimes but I do still use fork most of the time. DS also uses fork most of the time but when he sees everyone using chopsticks, he is encourage to use one too. We occasionally have "chopsticks days" wherein for the first part of the meal, he'll try to use it. Before the meal ends, he would switch to fork saying that his "hands" are tired. We do understand that of course.
Today turned out to be another chopstick night. I noticed that he's more confident in holding the sticks and less food are falling. He's more adept at using the chopsticks and he was able to eat the rest of the meal withour switching back to fork. But of course, the food was a good one to pick up like the tofu and anchovies. My next cue to watch out for is when he will be able to eat noodle with it. He already tried before but not quite successfully yet so I may have to see next time again.