Juliettables

Our darling little girl is nearly 18 months and I still can't believe it.

She's starting to gather more and more words.  She has always "talked" a mile a minute, gibberish words but in complete sentence structure, with inflection and everything.  Now she says "mommy," "daddy," "nurse" (breastfeeding), "doggy" (all animals), "dance" (for music), "yes," "no," "Ben," "shoes," "go," "gagget" (blanket.)  She understands everything we say now.

She loves to read.  I have a little green bucket of board books that sits on the step down to the play room.  She has two little plush chairs there, and she loves to wander over and read through her books on her own.  She doesn't have as much patience if you try and read a book to her.  Her favourite books right now are a little set of board books my sister gave her, with the lyrics from Christmas carols.  "Fa-la-la!" she exclaims, which used to mean "Deck the Halls," but that book went missing, so now it just means any book that is a song.

She loves to dance.  "Dumb Ways to Die" (thank you, Australian metro, for that gem) is a favourite, as well as the remix of "Once There Was a Snowman."  But her absolute top choice is a new CD I have that has scripture verses set to music.  The first one has a beautiful piano part that she loves, and every time a child or children's chorus sings she stops and stares, mesmerized.

She is finally starting to sleep longer chunks.  She does a solid 2 1/2 hour nap every afternoon.  She usually does one 4-5 hour sleep at night, which is a vast improvement.  We only lose that on the occasional times (less than once a week) that my willpower is too weak to avoid a little chocolate (one Hallowe'en chocolate) and then I pay for it because she's up all night having got the allergen through the breast milk.

She has discovered what I term "girl pitch," which is a shrill shriek that none of my boys ever used, but I've heard many times from my friends with girls.  And now we have it in our home.  She used it when she wants something, so I've been firmly teaching her to say "please" ("eez" - with an adorable grin) instead.  It seems to be working.

One of my favourite things she does right now is when she waves "bye."  She's usually such a large personality, jumping right in with the boys, yelling and shrieking.  But when she says bye, she waves her hand back and forth and says in a small, sweet voice, almost a whisper, "bye-ee."

We are having so much fun, just the two of us at home.  We read and dance and colour and sing and it's absolutely lovely.