Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Hannah - 21 Month Update

Hannah is becoming such a big girl! 


At 21 months old (on the 19th) she is going through a language explosion. Her comprehension is incredible and she’s able to follow simple instructions, as well as 2 and 3 part instructions such as “Put your bowl in the sink, then bring me your cup and spoon.” She impresses me every day.

She’s also starting to get very frustrated when I set limits, and she says ‘No’ more often than ‘yes’, but I think that’s just the developmental phase she’s going through. When she disobeys me I think it has more to do with lack of impulse control rather than that she wants to do it because I DON’T want her to do it, so I know with time she’ll improve at respecting boundaries.

She has a lot of compassion and empathy – she will rub your back when you’re sad and ask ‘what wrong?’. If you’re crying, then her eyes well up with tears too. While it’s nice to see her so compassionate towards her parents and grandparents, she also does this for her peers including those she doesn’t know. She really is a sweet sweet girl.

I’m not sure where she picked it up because no one sang it to me (thank goodness! I’ve always found it to be really uncomfortable), but Hannah will dance around the house singing ‘Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday Mommy!”. She also enjoys ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’ and ‘Gymbo the Clown goes side to side’ to the tune of ‘the wheels on the bus’. Hearing her little singing voice is really precious.

Hannah is still a daredevil. She climbs, jumps, hops, and leaps off of every surface she can. Trying to strike the balance between embracing her athleticism and trying to teach her what’s dangerous continues to be difficult for me. We’ve begun looking into switching Hannah to a gymnastics class instead of Gymboree as I feel that she’s just not being challenged in her class anymore, and I prefer her to have an instructor that would focus on form and safety instead of just singing and bubbles.

As far as vital stats go, I’m not sure how tall Hannah is, but she weighs about 32 pounds, wears 2T clothing , and recently graduated to a 7.5-8 shoe. Her hair is getting thicker and she now enjoys wearing bows so we’ll have to increase her bow collection, and anytime I give her a hat to wear, she’s excited and likes to look at herself in the mirror – ‘Oh tute!’ {cute} She’d brush her teeth 15 times a day if you’d let her, she loves cheese and grapes, and no longer has much interest in milk.

 She loves going bye bye – especially if it’s to go see Daddy at work and push around the kid’s sized shopping carts. Each time we go she gets more and more responsible with the cart and is recognizing her snacks when she finds them in the store. It’s a game of hide and seek that keeps her entertained for quite a while.

 She’s starting to get familiar with her alphabet and knows the majority of the ABC song. She can recall her numbers from 1 to 10, and sometimes continues as high as 18. Now she needs to start correctly counting items as she’s pretty hit or miss “4,5,6 – 7 fingers!” um… no.  She can correctly identify the letter M - can pick it out when written, knows what sound it makes, the works.  So 1 down, 25 more to learn.

We’re going to be converting her crib to a toddler rail this weekend, and hope that she continues to sleep well and that this doesn’t cause her sleeping habits to backslide at all. Currently she’s doing a great job of falling asleep on her own, and in the morning she crawls out of her crib and comes into our room at about 7am. We’re hoping that the additional freedom of the toddler rail doesn’t create issues in the middle of the night, but we won’t know till we try and right now the crib poses more safety concerns as she crawls in and out of it.  I’ll keep you updated on the results of this Big Girl transition.

I’m very proud of the smart little girl she’s becoming, and can’t wait to continue to watch her grow. I love her more and more each day.

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