Julia - 20 months

And of course my dear Julia is almost twenty months old now too! Robert and I keep looking at each other in disbelief, going, "She's a real little person!"

Julia's verbal language has really taken off since my last update. She's repeating words constantly and putting together two word sentences, mostly in the context of "More ___." (Robert swears she once said, "More popsicle please" but I haven't heard three words together yet.) She's dropped a lot of the sign language but still sometimes uses signs interchangeably or simultaneously. It feels like she's actually understanding less of what I say, but I think that's because I know she can handle more abstract sentences, so I'm upping the complexity of what I say to her. She's doing really well with shapes, and seems interested in counting and colors but I'm not sure she really gets the concepts yet. (I tried to teach her the alphabet but apparently all I did was teach her that all letters are "A." I guess she's not quite ready for that yet.) Pretend play is going well too, which is kind of nice. She can entertain herself for awhile, and even when I do play with her, it's a little bit more fun now. I'd rather spend twenty minutes playing with a dollhouse than stacking two blocks on top of each other.

She's sleeping about twelve hours a day total, splitting that between overnight and an afternoon nap. She's eating three meals a day and one or two snacks. We finally got rid of the high chair so she's on a booster seat at the table - wish we had done that sooner! She can drink from a cup but I still usually give her a lid and a straw. She eats what we eat and loves to ask us for a "snnnnack!" She adores fruit, does surprisingly well with veggies, is fine with most normal foods, and would eat butter all day long if I let her.

She's very interested in the toilet and very much dislikes diapers right now. I wish I had the time and energy to dedicate to potty training because I think we could really make some progress in that department. But, I don't, and I don't want to be inconsistent, so I'm taking her when I can, encouraging her awareness of the process, and keeping my expectations at zero.

Right now Julia loves bathtime, Scrappy, her dolls, her pretend ice cream cones, real popsicles, being outside, playing pretend, and flip flops. She hates not getting her way, which happens arbitrarily throughout the day. ("Julia, please no socks in the toilet." "Julia, please take the makeup brush out of your ear." "Yes Julia, you have to wear a shirt when we go to the store." Etc.) She has her meltdowns - more now that my attention is divided - but she's overall a really good-natured little girl. And she's funny; she makes us laugh and she's picking things up so quickly that it's really fun to be with her. 

The key to getting a laugh out of her:
 stand up above her on the bed, swing the fan around, and let it hit you in the head.

Bedhead.
No, I never did do anything about her hair. I love it like it is and she likes bows now so we're all good.

Pretending to take her temperature.

Sweet girl.

Maybe I'm on a roll and I'll do another post shortly on juggling the two of them because that deserves a post of its own!