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| Fun swinging with the Grandpas |
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| Hangin' with the grands |
Hard to believe our girl just turned 18 months! It's also hard to believe that she just gets cuter and cuter to us as she continues to develop and really start acting like a person, a person with definite likes and dislikes and the increasing ability to communicate those preferences - e.g., choosing a book to have read to her, shaking her head "no" to certain clothing choices.
18 month stats: Length 35.5" (height of an average 28 month old!), weight 32 lbs. (I think?)
Food: We still have a Picky Eater in the house, and even worse than before. The previously always happily-received, de-lush-ious backberries are now greeted with a yucky face and are quickly thrown on the ground, or smashed juicily onto the highchair tray, for example. However, there is some progress in terms of self-feeding, - she tries to use her fork and can eat food off it. She is somewhat less successful at picking up food with the fork and sometimes tries to use her fingers to put the food onto the fork tines.
Motor: Gaining confidence as a toddler, actually running around now. She has figured out how to push herself around on the little plastic tricycle, inside. She is going to MyGym at least once a week for the "Waddlers" class and it has definitely helped her learn and practice different motor skills; she's now not scared to walk up an inclined surface, and will try to go down a slide on her own. She doesn't quite understand how to jump yet, and when on the trampoline will just sort of bounce a little. The dancing, however, has really progressed...there are steps, and head waggles, and shoulder shimmies, and the latest, tushy wiggles (which she will do on command).
Language: More and more words that we can make out. She may even have started with some phrases, though not very intelligibly. We both swear we've heard her say "I like it" while eating! Most definitely (and most scarily) she understands everything you say. She doesn't really say "yes" or "no" but definitely knows how to shake her head when she doesn't want something! "Do you want to get ready for bed?" Reply: violent head shake. "Do you want to come out of the pool?" Reply: violent head shake. She says "quock quock" when she sees a duck, too.
Social: She increasingly imitates others' actions. For some reason, I find it especially endearing that as soon as she received her awesome hand me down plastic kitchen/laundry room, she started trying to get ice by putting the toy cup up to the icemaker in the "fridge," and will do this on command as well. I didn't realize she had noticed that we did this, and understood what was going on! There has been both more need for discipline as well as more actual understanding and (sometimes) following of said (repeated) disciplinary actions/commands. We started her going to the MyGym classes as one way to have her be around other kids more, but it's really still the parallel play stage. Overall, though, she remains a mostly happy and smiley child who is always smiling at and flirting with anyone she sees (for example, 3 tables of other patrons while out to eat last night, plus 2 waitstaff and both restaurant owners - at the Mile Away where we got married!). She is also learning various social mores. She knows to pick up pieces of carpet fuzz and give them to you as trash, or she will actually go to the trashcan and throw it away herself.
Sleep: Not too much to add here, she is still a parent's dream in terms of sleeping. Now down to one nap a day in the early afternoon, around 1.5 hours usually. She still sleeps with "Purple Blanket" and her most recent other bed buddy is the blue elephant with the rattle in its tail.
Play: She LOVES her little inflatable swimming pool on the porch, and will happily splash around in it (without even needing actual toys) for half an hour. This is not surprising given how much she has taken to liking her bath. She likes her Legos (Duplo) and is learning to put the pieces together. Both she and the cat, Denali, have habituated to each other and Denali will actually (mostly) placidly stay put as shrill shrieks pierce the air, and even when Lyra does her latest thing called "tickling the cat" where she actually rubs the top of her head against the cat's head, or tail, or back. Really quite hilarious to watch and I will need to get a video of that.
Cutie-pieness: How could I forget - she now "blows kisses" (slaps her palm on her mouth) and "kisses" (either air-kisses or comes at you with her open mouth). Adorable. If she doesn't think you deserve one she'll violently shake her head when asked for a kiss.
We'll just leave you with this video of Lyra enjoying the lake:
