Yesterday was Alethea’s eighteen month birthday.  Happy Birthday, Baby!

I can’t believe she’s already a year and a half old.  How time flies!  She’s quickly turning into an independent little girl.  There’s really no trace of baby left.  She likes to do everything that mommy is doing; whether it’s cooking, cleaning or typing on the computer, she always wants to help.

This month getting dressed has turned from one of her least favorite activities to most favorite, provided I give her plenty of time to attempt to put things on by herself.  After many unsuccessful tries, she’ll finally tell me that’s she’s ‘coe’ (cold) and will allow me to assist her in the dressing process.

Besides getting dressed and ‘helping’ mommy, her other favorite activities include taking baths, playing outside, reading books, dancing, watching Elmo on TV, and playing the piano.

Her vocabulary continues to expand rapidly.  She has about 100 words that she uses voluntarily and regularly, but she’ll repeat just about any single word that you ask her to say.  Her most common words include: yellow, kiwi, apple, no, cup, Dee, baby, bubble, book, Daddy, Mommy and Grandma.  She isn’t really putting two words together much yet, although the other day before dinner all her spoons were dirty and I told her, “Daddy will clean a spoon for you.”  To which she responded, “Wash” – short pause – “Spoon”.  The sentences are on their way!

She seems interested in the changes happening in her big girl room, although of course she wants to help with the painting.  I was letting her watch, but after one hand in the paint can incident, I only work on that part when she’s sleeping.  The other thing she seems pretty interested in is the mirror.  She likes to hold Dee up to it and then laugh out loud when I say, “Look, now there’s two Dees!”  I’m not sure why that’s funny, but apparently it is.

We’ve enjoyed going to our ECFE classes this month and now that we’ve been a few times, Alethea is getting better at staying near me during the “circle time” at the end where the group sings songs, reads a story, etc.  She still doesn’t like having to give the glittery star topped wand back after we’re done singing Twinkle Twinkle, but we’re working on that too.

Over all I’d say the month went well, and got even better once I realized that the reason she often seemed clingy/needy was simply because she wanted to participate in what I was doing at the moment, so now I try to let her help with as many of my daily activities as she’s capable of doing safely.

I’ll be posting her current stats after her 18 month well check this coming Monday.

Thanks for reading!