Growing a Little Schulze: 18 and 19 months

18 months: August 24th
19 months: September 24th

Language:
Her language is just taking off. Unfortunately we can't understand most of it! Before now, when she said something it was pretty clear what her meaning was. Now she is attempting a lot more but it's just not as clear. But her intelligible language is certainly increasing as well. She is very into labeling things over and over until you acknowledge and repeat it for her. She's adding new words and animal sounds to her vocab all the time. Here are some highlights:

Animals:
rooster sound = "doot doo doo"
frog = "bit bit"
tiger = a very soft "raw"
She also added snake, bee, elephant and donkey to the list

Blankets = meemees or meenees
Sheep in her crib = baa

"Hi" has finally made a reappearance as well as "hey." Bye bye is very clear now too.

She says I love you and gave out her first unsolicited "I love you" to Jeff on October 21st. Shortly thereafter she started saying it to everyone!

She starting to call other people by name. Much to my mom's delight! Paaps = pa or baaps. Grammi = mami or mimi. Grampa = ampa or pa. Grandma = amma or ma.

It was also the era of the pumpkin. However Claire calls it an apple (apoo). Freakin apoos everywhere! Every time she said it we would repeat it but with pumpkin. This phased her not at all. Didn't even attempt to say pumpkin. She just ignored us like we had lost our minds trying to label those awesome orange apples as pumpkins! We pulled into a pumpkin patch and we hear from the back seat: "Apoo? Apoo! APOOO!"

Physical development:
Physically she is still a little monkey. Loves to climb. Desperately wants to be able to jump. She loves trying to carry heavy stuff or push big things around. She loves to push her own stroller or her cozy coupe car around. We recently took the bottom out of her cozy coupe so now her feet can touch the ground. After a quick period of adjustment where she had to learn how to stay inside the car instead of falling through the bottom, she is loving her "cah." Her interest and skill with coloring is increasing. She likes to "dy" and use "gih-cuhs" (draw and use stickers). She will sit at the table and draw or play with Play-Doh for 5-10 minutes.

Sleep:
We had a nap scare just after 18 months where she was fighting her nap and just not sleeping for multiple days stretched across a few weeks. Then we went on vacation to St. George. She was a little off track there but once we got back, napping have gone back to normal. Thank goodness!! Nighttime sleep continues to be easily interrupted by teething. Her canines are coming in and filling in the few empty spaces she has left. I guess molars are up soon. Yikes!

Other fun stuff:
She loves looking at pictures. Each night she looks at the pictures on the bookshelf and labels mama, dada and baby (bebe). She sounded very french for a while with the way she said mama and baby.

She somehow figured out shadows. I was sitting in the living room one evening and the dining room light was casting my shadow on the wall. She pointed at my shadow and said mama. Either that night or shortly after, she waved so her shadow waved and said "hi."

She loves books, especially touch and feel books. One night I was reading her one and I wasn't touching the pictures. She grabbed my hand and pulled it over to feel the soft bunny or scratchy tractor seat or whatever it was. I cracked up!

She is finally old enough to really show pleasure and enjoyment on outings. So it's fun for us to take her places! So we went apple picking and to the pumpkin patch and had a good time. Those will be featured in another post.

She's picked up a lot of body parts: ears, eyes, mouth, nose, tongue, feet, toes, fingers, hands, head, hair, knee. We are working on elbow and on shoulder so we can sing head, shoulders, knees and toes. She likes to recite the facial body parts at random times. She also likes to use her food to point at them. She will put a green bean up to (or in) her nose or ear! She's going to get something stuck someday soon. And I'm sure it will happen while Jeff is at work, so he won't be able to put his ER experience in retrieving objects to use.

Not so fun stuff:
Claire has entered the mommy phase. The one where she only wants mommy. Ugh. It's painful. She doesn't want anyone else to hold her. She doesn't want me to put her down. She's also developed some stranger anxiety so if anyone tries to talk to her, she turns her head away and whines. Yet she will ride through the grocery store saying hi and waving at everybody. She just doesn't know what to do when someone responds with more than a hi back.

Also, along with the increased language comes her belief that a verbal utterance gets her what she wants. But sometimes it doesn't. Either because she can't have it or because we don't know what she is saying. So she gets frustrated when she really wants something and we are clueless. Lots of crying round these parts. Add in random tantrums thrown just for the heck of it and we are definitely hitting the terrible two's a little early. And I hear three is even worse. Long road ahead!

Photos!