Julia turned eighteen months old today! One and a half years of fun. She is growing at leaps and bounds right now, amazing us every day with all she is learning and some that she knows without us even having tried to teach it to her.
She weighs 24 pounds and is 31 inches tall, putting her closer to the 50th percentile in those, and is still off the scale 100th percentile in her 'noggin' size.
She knows and uses at least 15 signs. She can understand so many, many words and will usually follow simple commands like 'bring mommy the book' and 'hold my hand.' She still doesn't use as many spoken words, but I'm sure that's coming. She is saying more sounds. This week she began saying "hey" and "pa-pee" (instead of just 'pa-pa'). She can point out tons of things in her picture books when you ask ("where is the moon?" or "where is the elephant?") and even points at things and makes the sign (e.g., cookie, car) or says outloud what it is (e.g., Nana, Papa, Mama, Dada).
She has become quite adept at recognizing patterns, particularly in books. It can get almost uncanny sometimes, as though she can read as we turn the page in
I Like It When by Mary Murphy to see a page that says "BOO" but doesn't really depict surprise, yet Julia immediately covers her eyes when she sees that page. She knows that is the peekaboo page. She dances when she sees the page with the radio, too. Also, she says "row, row, row your boat" as we are turning to the appropriate page in another book, and "gurgle, gurgle, glub glub" when she sees that page in my favorite childhood book,
Baby Listens by Eloise Wilkin. We have to watch out sometimes as we're asking her to point at things, because if we do it in the same way the second time, she'll anticipate where we're going to point.
She still loves books - even "reading" a book while we drive along in the car for 10 minutes or more. She still loves music, and I'm excited we start kindermusic tomorrow at the Community Music School at the university. (On a side note, I've never before paid so little money to parking services - it only costs us $20 for a 'patron permit' for the entire year. I'd be surprised if noone scams them on that deal. I mean, it's less than a ticket cost even 10 years ago.) Here is a video of Julia singing along with her gloworm - you can't see her well but you can hear it.
Speaking of music, she loves to dance with this toy. This also leads to how much she loves to feel helpful - she likes to throw things in her clothes hamper and in the trash can, so we have to try to make sure she doesn't throw away her toys - especially the pieces to this toy that hangs on the fridge precariously close to the big trash can. I really can't believe we have all the pieces still (I am constantly searching for at least one piece - I just found the cow's behind in our bedroom).
Julia still enjoys eating, and like her Daddy doesn't miss a meal. Her favorite foods are still primarily banana and cookies. She's learned the sign for banana, so each morning after a brief period of play she'll look at one of us and sign "banana," letting us know that it's time to quit playing with Little People, watching TV, or doing anything else, and it's time to get on to breakfast. "Cookies" for Julia are Cookie Crisp cereal, so when she's behaving we'll let her have a couple of those, which always leads to rave reviews.
But now she's asleep, so we better get things straightened up for another day. She'll be up and running soon, and we don't want to miss it.
