Scarlett Ruth - 18 months

I know I'm a week behind in writing this post.  Let's just say that since school ended I have not turned on my computer.  All of my technology needs have been met just by using my cell phone.  I think that the emotional rollercoaster I was on during the month of June, coupled with the craziness that happens as another school year winds down, left me completely exhausted - okay and the fact that I'm in my first trimester and chasing after a toddler all the time!  But I didn't want to let this milestone go unrecognized.

I have to say that I am more in love with this baby every day.  I don't know how that is possible but my heart is just bursting with love, admiration, and pride that she is my baby.  At 18 months she has a full vocabulary!  She knows her colours, shapes, and numbers.  Just the last couple of days alone she wants to count everything.  After our program this morning, we were passing by a row of bicycles and she said, "count" and proceeded to count them one at a time.  I'm not sure if she is making the 1-to-1 connection, but she knows that we count a group of things together!

When it is time for bed or a nap, she now tells me she is tired.  She says, "tired, bed". Then when I get her there she asks for her "sleeve" to suck on, and her "blankie."




The other day she sang "Twinkle, Twinkle" in its entirety...no prompting....I was in the other room.  In fact, she will only sing songs if she does not realize she has an audience.  Otherwise she plays the "fill in the blanks" game.  But since singing "Twinkle, twinkle" her repertoire now includes "A, B, C," "The eensy weensy spider,"  and "Head and Shoulders," among others.

When something is funny, Scarlett laughs and says "funny".  When I yawn, she tells me I'm sleepy.  When I sneeze, Scarlett says "Bless You".

The past two days, Scarlett has been having imaginary tea parties with her Dora and Boots figurines - but then now she asks for them to be placed in the "circles" of her high chair tray.  Then, while she's eating, she offers them bites of what she is having!

The biggest change has been her new found independence now that she FINALLY started walking just before her 18th birthday.  She does not want any help - "Self, self" for myself!!!  This is fine except when it is a place where she really needs me to hold her hand.

What I find really neat is that she can distiguish when to add "ing" to a word, and when to leave it as a root word.  For example when she dances she says "dancing".  She will ask to "eat" but when she's eating she will say, "eating".  The same with "clap" and "clapping".

Sign language is still very present, even though Scarlett speaks everything.  She still wants to learn new signs. Her latest is "thirsty" and she will clearly say thirsty while signing.  Often she is too lazy to say "please" and "thank you" and will simply sign those words.

Thanks to two "opposites" books, Scarlett has really taken to learning her opposites.  Smile and Frown has been great as she can look at pictures and tell what the person is doing.  She loves her photo albums, which I used to let her look at herself until she accidentally ripped out her pages.  But she says "read read" and will say "you you" when she wants to look at her photo albums.

I wouldn't even know how many words are in her vocabulary.  I just know that it is mind blowing.  I can't keep up.  Dora is her absolute favourite person in the world - followed by my mom and her paediatrician who she sees weekly!  Now if only she would start to use the potty, not only for sitting and enjoying her books.  Every day we do the potty sit (she even tells me poo poo sometimes) and it never fails that ten minutes after getting off the potty she uses her diaper instead!  Maybe I'm too ambitious.

I'm sure I'll have a whole bunch more to add later on, but for now, here are some photos and a video taken the past couple of days.  I hope this didn't come across as bragging.  It's really more for my records of where Scarlett was at as she reached the 18 month mark.  Tomorrow it will be back to posting about me and my seven week ultra sound.