18 Month Milestones

This morning as I sat with Evelyn, she asked for me to sing "Twinkle Little Star" and then she started doing the hand motions with me-I love this age!

Evelyn is just above the 50% for height, weight, and head, so she has maintained a great growth rate. She had completed the milestone task list at our pediatrician's that is through 24 months, so the Doctor was dutifully impressed ; ) It asks questions such as how many words she can say, building a tower, coloring without just eating the crayons, running without falling over, basically different milestones having to do with all the areas of development.

Her gross motor skills are much better now, after all that wondering when she would ever walk! She can kick and throw a ball (when she first kicked a ball Bard spent the rest of the day trying to get her to do it again-ahh, vicarious parenting!) She runs and goes up and down stairs. She still is not much of a climber, not really trying to climb on furniture or bookshelves although I think that is more due to being tentative and less to do with ability.

Her fine motor skills are great, she colors well, holds and maneuvers small objects-her favorite being tiny pieces of dirt that she finds on the floor and loves to throw away! She drives me crazy by refusing to eat with utensils very much, preferring to use her fingers. But even the Dr said it's nothing to worry about, she probably just likes it better. Sad for me when I feed her applesauce or yogurt! I need to work with her more on doing different things for herself. Funny, when I taught at Montessori I was always on the parents for this same thing! I have started having her pull up her pants and need to have her do more of her own dressing. We put her shoes on together, but I can have take them off too. All those little tasks help her develop skills and confidence-two good things!

Verbally she is insane. I go to bed hearing her voice in my head because she doesn't stop talking all day. She gets it from Bard : ) She says 2, 3, 4 word sentences now. Of course most of the time they are not grammatically correct but something funny like, "Head bonk hurt." Or, "Daddy bye bye work" Or she'll just pick a word for whatever reason, that it sounds good to her, and she'll say it over and over and over and over again. Like, "Cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold." Until you finally say, "Yes Evelyn, it's cold." Then she will triumphantly yell "Cold!" one more time, just so you know who is in charge.

Socially and Emotionally she is going through a lot of changes. She is realizing that other kids ca take her things (resulting in her shrieking-I don't know where she gets that) and that she can take other kids' things-resulting in me shrieking-hey, what can you do?) Kids at this age don't really understand share yet (does anyone?!) So we work on delayed gratification-you can have that when she is done, etc. But it does make for a chaotic circus when we are around other kids!

She had been crying for a bit when we dropped her off in Baby Garden on Sundays, but that has stopped and she has gone back to being fine when we leave her there. In fact, as my friend put it, she really does need a bit more stranger anxiety! Even yesterday when we were at the doctor's office, which I don't think she can remember from 6 months ago. She was perfectly comfortable to walk out the room, down the hall and into another room with two nurses, never even looking back to see if I was there. Little stinker! She regularly goes up to people in the store or on a walk and says, "Hi hi hi hi hi hi hi." Which of course normally produces the desired effect.

Cognitively she seems to be doing well. I can't quite remember the norms for this age. But for a while now she has asked for things that she can't see but knows are there-raisins in the cupboard, Bard coming home from work if she sees me making dinner, that type of thing. She easily associates people with places and knows that if I say we are going to church that means she will see Annabelle, Mary, Skyler, Abby, and so on. And she has started recognizing geography, particularly the streets that go to Henry's house! She knows some colors, pretty much all body parts, animals and that type of thing. Al though it took a while before she got that a dog said woof, not meow!

Hmm, let's see, what else??? She loves to go on walks outside and even though the weather is cooling off, we'll go out at least once a day, unless it's pouring, which isn't very often. She has a whole ton of teeth now, finishing up on her molars-hopefully soon cause they are hard! She loves other kids, her age, older, or younger. Our neighbor's have a baby and Evelyn calls her name every time we walk by-of course over and over! She is extremely busy and rarely sits still for very long, which is part her age and part her personality.

I'm sure I could write another page or so, but I'll stop. What a great kid! )