Nineteen Months

All of a sudden, our little Claire doesn’t seem so little anymore. Now that she’s a big sister, she’s starting to seem more and more like the big girl we keep telling her she is. Every month is our favorite age, and we wish that she would just stop growing up, but it has truly been a joy to witness what amazing things she’s been able to learn and how fast she learns them. For instance, she already had several songs that she helps to sing but has now added “I’ve Got Peace Like a River,” “This Little Light of Mine,” “Polly Put the Kettle On,” and “He’s Got the Whole World (in His Hands)” after only being taught how to sing them once. She’ll learn the song on one day, then the next day she’ll be able to chime-in with the word(s) that were taught to her as soon as we start singing it.

She can count from 1 to 10 and we’re working on recognizing numbers out of order. She can also count things such as buttons and blocks, but if there are only two objects then she prefers to continue counting to three (“won, foo, free!!!”) We’re working on lowercase letters and she enjoys playing with her alphabet (“ah-bet”) flash cards. She recognizes colors quickly and has started sorting laundry with Mommy by saying “yes” or “no” to let Mommy know whether the clothing belongs in the whites pile. It is also wonderful that she has begun saying “no” to everything (and especially “noh-noh-noh-noh-noh-noh”) far less often and has instead been replying very confidently with “yes” or “no” answers to many different questions. She understands a question remarkably well and usually gets the right answer (except that “do you have a stinky?” is always answered with “noooooo” in an upward inflection, which is extremely cute but correct only 75% of the time). She’s not yet bothered by the constant questioning and can often be distracted from a potential temper-tantrum by being asked simple questions about another subject.

Claire took Daddy to Kindermusik in October, for the first time without Mommy. Some things that Daddy noticed are that Claire gives a lot of attention to Ms. Jane, her teacher, and stares at Jane the entire time to know what’s going on (since Daddy doesn’t know the routine). Hopefully, this is a sign that Claire recognizes how to respect her teachers, but that may be drawing too much out of the observation. Claire also goes to Ms. Donna (her friend Michael’s mom) and gives Donna some big “Hello! I missed you!” hugs. Claire is extremely well behaved during storytime; she gets up from Daddy and walks over to Ms. Jane, then kindly selects a place to sit on the side or in the back, and then stays put throughout the entire story (some of the other kids have trouble sitting that long, which is understandable).

Claire has been much better about trying milk and will now drink about 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup of whole milk over the course of a day while still drinking a LOT of water. We’d forgotten to practice drinking with a real cup for over a month, so we’re starting to get back into that with just water and she’s doing fairly well - except for the pick-up and put-down part. The cutest thing about kids this age drinking from a normal cup is their need to brace the top of the cup/glass against their forehead while they drink, which leaves little lines on the forehead and the cheeks.  She’s already going through phases of liking-rejecting-accepting some foods. Peanut-butter sandwiches were a 1-week favorite then went untouched the next week; now she’ll take it every once-in-a-while. Perhaps the greatest achievement at the dinner table is her ability to understand the cause/effect concept: if she eats a few more bites of “vegetable A”, then she’ll get to have some of “potato-chip B” from Daddy’s plate (the next step is learning to ask sooner, because Daddy eats potato chips pretty fast).

These days, her vocabulary is whatever we make it. Tell her to say a word and she’ll say it (well, her own little interpretation of it, but usually close enough). We’ve tried to correct some of the mispronounced words without much success. We were working on fork (she pronounces this “gook”) by saying “ffffffff - ffffffffff - ffffFORK”  and  she would respond “ffffffffff - fffffffff - GOOK” which sent Daddy falling out of his chair laughing.

Elmo is still her favorite toy and MM brought a new Elmo book for Claire that she picked up on very quickly. On one page, Elmo puts his head between his legs and looks at the world upside down. The very next day, Claire had it figured out and got herself all tickled by bending over to put her hands and head on the ground then announce “uppa dow!” She’s starting to get a few other toys too as distraction items from the new baby. We look forward to letting her play with the dollhouse that Mommy discovered on craigslist (practically new, all the sold-separately-accessories, and fairly large, all for 25% of retail). It’s a handy thing that she’ll play more intensely (and alone) with books or toys that are usually stored on a high shelf; we may use this tactic more often as we find the need for more distractions as we tend to baby needs.

Claire has done very well with her little brother. She can already say that she is his big “sista” and James is her baby “bada”. She likes to rock his rocking chair (“rock-a-baybee!”) and curiously watches him get changed, fed, and put to sleep. At first, she was very bothered by his crying and would start to whimper in sympathy; although she is better about it now, she still demonstrates some level of genuine concern. The cutest thing of all is the way she pronounces his name, but there are several interpretations of what she’s saying. The three most common interpretations are “Baby Jims”, “Baby Jems”, and “Baby Jeeps”. We all love her little name(s) for him so much, that we’ve each taken to calling him by our favorite version.