Dear Carolyn,
Today you are 18 months old! We celebrated by going to your last session of Babies Love Books at the library. As of today all of our scheduled activities are over for the summer, with the notable exception of playgroup.
This morning you absolutely shocked me by picking up your letter “D” alphabet block, pointing to the letter, and saying and signing the letter “D”. Then I showed you “A”, “B” and “C”, and you named those as well. I stopped there, because I’m a little frightened. Aren’t you too young to start recognizing your letters?!? You’re starting to really get good at counting as well, and will often count your toes when you’re barefoot. Sometimes you end up with 6 toes on a foot, but I think it’s just because you can’t wait to get to “8, 9, 10!” I have to admit, I haven’t kept very good track of what new signs you know this month, but you’re starting to try to sign the letters and numbers, and we just got the next set of Signing Time DVDs with all kinds of animals on them so I bet you’ll learn a lot over the next few weeks. I can think of 100 words you say now – I know there are some I couldn’t remember when I wrote them all down though, so there’s probably quite a few more. I can’t believe that just three months ago you barely said three words.
Now that the weather is warmer, we’ve been going outside and playing with chalk and bubbles, and swinging on your swing – it’s very cute when you say “wheeee!” every time I push the swing. The funniest thing in the world to you is when we’re on the deck with the bubbles and the dogs, and Molly jumps up on her hind legs and snaps at the bubbles. You love being outside so much that when I have to take the dogs out and it’s raining, and I leave you indoors, you cry like your little heart is broken in two. I think I’m going to have to get you rain boots and a slicker so you can go out and play in the puddles.
“No!” has become a rather frequently used word in your vocabulary. Sometimes you get in a mood where you’ll say “no” to everything, even things that you want. Luckily, it’s still cute. We’ll see how cute it still is in a few months!
You really want to do everything yourself now. You point to your chest and say “tee” – which is your name for yourself apparently – when you want to do it instead of letting me. So far you can get your pants on most of the way, your shirt on with a little guidance, and your socks on pretty much on your own. You blow your nose – and toss the used tissue! – and wash your face on your own, and you get a turn at brushing your teeth and hair after I do it. And if it’s bath night, you can feed yourself an entire container of yogurt!
I love hearing you wake up every day. You almost immediately start calling for “Moddy” and “Mercy”, and you talk to your dolls and laugh at whatever they say back to you. You’re always so happy to see me when I come to get you each morning, and your smile brightens up my morning too!
Love, Mommy