20 Months Old

My darling baby girl is full of observations now that her mouth is making words. She notices and narrates when we get more food at dinner, or when we need more water. “Pour!” One of her favorite activities is playing with her cups and pitcher in the bath tub, she calls her little pitcher “pour,” and enjoys when we “ee-ful” (refill) her water cup.  She points out uh-ohs everywhere, tipped over bottles in the bathroom or the store, dropped crayons and coloring books, wet thumbs/shirts/couches, and undone safety buckles, the ones keeping our girl away from under the sink.  And she would always prefer if we fixed the issue before moving on with our day.

She can get pretty bossy. Today, while she was pointing at the side table, Anna told me, “wa-whee (water) orange.” I wasn’t just to put her water on a coaster but a particular one. We have been having some clashes over her specifications. One morning for breakfast she wanted yogurt, but not the vanilla flavor only the berry. We haven’t ever differentiated between the two verbally so she wasn’t sure how to tell us, all we heard was “no” and then “more yogurt” followed by lots of spoon-shaking to get the vanilla yogurt off.  Ahhh, parenting can be so frustrating.

Although we are getting tired of hearing the two songs she can “name,” it is fun seeing her opinionated, with a desire for independence. I want to do so much for her, and she wants to do so much for herself. She is my training wheels for letting go, showing me the ropes of not being an overbearing parent. “No no no, Anna” is her gentle way to tell me that she can do/try it herself.  She also teaches me lessons in patience as she consistently repeats herself and waits for us to figure out her words so that we can understand one another.

She loves to learn already. She points out the few letters she knows. Anna finds A’s everywhere and just started (randomly) point out P’s. We taught her A on the keyboard (and N, though she prefers M) so she could practice typing her name, she also knows Esc so she can get out of random menus. But the P thing, I’m not sure where it came from. It must’ve been a letter of the day. But new words excite her, she repeats them often. In bath time the other night, she saw water droplets on the walls and called them “bubbles.” I told her, not quite, but wasn’t sure how to explain them. So I just called them “water droplets” and she copied me because she wanted to be able to say it too.  She can now start a prayer on her own.  As we walk her through the remainder of the prayer she makes sure to say thanks for mommy, daddy, and snack.  When we end the prayer, she usually cuts us off during “in the name of” and skips to “Jesus, Amen.” I love praying with her.  We know how well we’ve timed dinner by how anxious she is to eat.  If she is starving she’ll sneak food the whole prayer, but if we were on time she suggests we pray and folds her arms ready to go.

My favorite time with her recently has been sitting at the dining room table in the morning. I usually read while she colors, and points out all her friends in her coloring book. Sometimes we play with her Noah’s Ark magnets and match up the animals with their friends, or make the noises. And sometimes we just play with blocks or talk about colors, but she is so happy to sit with me and play and chat. Daddy loves to wrestle and laugh and raspberry and build forts. But us ladies sit and chat and dance and read.

One recent habit she has showed is mentioning her family. Something will trigger a memory and she will just say the names of relatives.  Once she said, “Auntie, Uncle, ball,” which is what they played with together earlier this month. I love how important her family can be even so far away. We went to our local library’s story time and I told her that we might see friends there, she then asked, “Mia?” I wish we could see cousin Mia there, but she lives a bit far to join us today. I’m so grateful for skype which can bring us closer to our family even if we are far away.

“Cute runs in the family”