Monday, April 9, 2012

19 months

Well, I stretch the truth a little. The ticker up the top says she's 1 year, 7 months, one week and one day old. It means I'm late in posting again. No real suprise there.

Teething has taken a long time. More than a month this time around, 5 or 6 weeks. I don't know if it is actually taking longer than it used to, or wether you shorten things in your memory when you look back on it. Things have started to look up in the last two days, so she's finally starting to eat again, is back to 4 feeds in 8 hours overnight instead of 6 (oh joy).

We have been able lucky enough to discover Rachael's comprehension of a lot of words over the last few weeks.
Rachael can now point to her main body parts when asked:
Head, hair, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, toungue, teeth, shoulders, arms, hands, elbow, fingers, tummy,  belly button, bum, back, legs, feet and toes. She still is almost obsessive with her love of her tummy, as she has been for quite a while, and is sure everybody in the world is as in love with her own tummy as she is, and naturally wants to share it. Bum is a new love, thanks to grandma pointing it out in a book. Thankfully the word only, not the sharing bit.
I'm sure she knows words we don't know she does, as discovering her comprehension of words is often by accident, so it makes sense there are some we haven't discovered yet.

Have I mentioned her favourite colour is red? She loves wearing red socks, and insists on her parents wearing red jumpers at every possible moment.

Rachael loves to share with inaminate objects. She shared her lunch with a rubber duck. She shared her feed with Mr Lion. She thinks this is great fun.
She is also quite good at sharing some things with other people. Sometimes when eating a meal, she will insist on a parent taking alternative bites with her. This seems to be a fun game. Other times she wants to share it all- very happy to "share" the entire food with a parent if it's a vegetable. Ie, "if you like it so much, you eat it; I'm not interested"
Sharing toys with other children, not so much. But she IS a toddler. It'd almost be weird if she did play perfectly well with others at this age.
She does share Mr Lion's hugs quite readily with just about anybody though. Which I didn't expect. I thought she'd be territorial of the most important thing in her life. But in some ways, he's like an extension of her. Often if she's having a feed with mum, dad will have to hold Mr Lion. Mr Lion gets special hugs and kisses at bedtime. Mr Lion will also get passed into the car as dad is leaving, for last hugs and kisses as he goes, as if she can't physically get there, he'll do as a proxy. He'll also often get passed to someone if they're after a hug, and she's not ready to go to them yet.

Speechwise, not much has progressed in the last month. Her new favourite word is "stuck" (although it is distinguisable from "duck" by context only, as she's only getting out the "uck" sound. She loves duck too though). Stuck is a very handy word for her though. It's great to alert caregivers when she needs help. I can't help buit think of the video of Addie every time I hear the word though.

I'm still amazed by the way she grows up. A year ago she was only 7 months. Just started rolling. Now she's running all over the place. And then I look at Finnian and Noah, and see what a "big girl" toddler she's going to be in another short year.