Twenty Months Update!

Twenty months have passed and Little Miss gets bigger and brighter every day. Time for another update on her development…

Physically Darci is still a big girl, larger than most of her peers. She fits in size 24 months – 2T right now. She climbs well to get up on chairs and such, and has been climbing more at the playground. She runs at a good speed and can get away from you pretty quickly. She is able to turn doorknobs and will open and shut doors as she pleases.

She hasn’t tried climbing out of her crib again at all, so she is still in the crib and we haven’t had to convert it yet to the toddler bed. She is a good sleeper at night, she goes down between 6:30 – 7 every night with no fuss and no waking during the night, and I usually get her out of bed at 7 AM. Lucky us! Naptime is not the same story, however, and poor Daddy has to deal with something different every day.

Darci can help you dress her by lifting legs out of and into pants, holding her arms up when asked and she will help pull the shirt off over her head. She hasn’t undressed herself yet, but I don’t think that is very far off. She shows no preference for wearing one thing or another yet. She won’t allow any hair bands or barrettes yet, she just pulls them right out.

She prefers to feed herself but if it’s something really yummy she’ll let you help. I recently got her a fork and some new spoons. She’s gotten pretty good with the fork and can poke and eat with the best of us. But the spoon (also one of her favorite words) is not the same story. She just can’t seem to understand the need to keep the food on the upright side of the spoon and not to turn it upside down before sticking it in her mouth. She is still fairly open to try new things but she decides sometimes that she doesn’t like something and it’s tough to get her to try it again. Omelettes, mandarin oranges and yogurt are her favorite foods right now. And anything you happen to be eating.

Toddlers are known for being emotional, and Darci is no exception. She is capable of understanding good behavior and is a very good girl for the most part. Even though she can climb and get into anything she can reach, she really doesn’t do much of that and we don’t have child locks on most cabinets, just the key ones with dangerous items. She gets frustrated easily and it’s best if you can head that off when you see it coming. She plays well by herself but will engage you when she wants to play and plays well with us, she’s not demanding or selfish with her toys right now.

She’s learning very quickly and is eager to be learning something all the time. She asks us to read to her, and most of reading right now consists of asking her where something in the picture is and having her point it out. She can identify a couple of hundred items, shapes and animals, a few numbers, and maybe a letter or two. Numbers, letters, and colors are things we’re working on right now.

Her vocabulary seems pretty wide when it comes to knowing the labels for things, and she understands us as long as she knows what we’re talking about. When you give her a new word now she will repeat it most of the time and wants to say it with you over and over. Only certain words make up her daily language, though she seems to know many more than she says. Once she starts making a new sound (last week it was the B sound) then she likes to say words with that sound, like ball and baby. She uses a few two word phrases but the only thing close to a sentence is “I love you Daddy!” (you can actually understand it most of the time) which she shouts whenever one of us is out of sight. We shout back “I love you Darci!” and she laughs uproariously. Doesn’t get much better than that, does it?