Milestones this week, you read your first word.

20 Months
Yesterday pancake, you mastered drinking from a glass! we started a day or two earlier, but you pretty much figured it out in one day. you hardly have spills and would love to run around with the glass, but we ask you to sit in your highchair.

This past Saturday after lots of excitement from the prior week's library find, Big Girl Potty, we got you your first toddler toilet! I have a hard time committing to the word "potty" in public, although of course we use it in private. Dad won a Target gift certificate at work, so it was courtesy of Apple ;) You were very excited to be a big girl like Ashley in the book, and love sitting on it and trying it out.




You continue to sleep really well. You have been getting several of your molars but at most you wake briefly in the night and go back to sleep after a minute. For at least three months now, you have been sleeping consistantly almost 12 hours at night and a 1.5 hour nap. You play for an hour or so with your "friends" in your crib before falling asleep at naptime. Sometimes you get fussy just before falling asleep and throw them all overboard.

Your knitted cat Tot has become even more imperative this past month. I won't say you're completely dependent on him/her, but you ask for Tot everywhere you go, and we better have him [?] if we're out during a crisis. Its definitely time to get some backups.



On Saturday we also found a great deal on the sand/water table I'd wanted for you, previously opened and missing the umbrella. Our backyard has plenty of shade so we were happy to find the discount! You are having so much fun with it. Saturday morning I had done a lot of gardening (mainly weeding) and we had the backyard mowed and edged so it looks great again and is a relaxing place for us all to hang out. You play with some of your Little People out there, and took to calling a blond boy "Ian". We didn't know how you came up with it until we realized Ian is the name of the brother pig in the Olivia series. Grammie gave you the first Olivia book while she was here, and you love to look at the pictures and point out "yo-yo", "bathing suit", "meatballs", etc. You really like Ian his newly named friend Emily (I helped with that one), and Farmer Girl.

Oh and when you try to say bathing suit you say "bathing soup" which in your teeny voice is super adorable.

As far as speaking, I can't even begin to sum up everything you say. You know the name of so many things and you string together complicated sentences, properly conjugating and switching many pronouns and tenses. Most of your sentences are 4-5 words long, but you will often use 7 words at a time. You know and effortlessly use extraneous words like knob. Last month when Grammie was here, she was watching you and remarked "She is so amazing". You looked at Grammie and said "Yes... I am!" I don't know much about grammer development but that to me seems like a big concept to grasp (albeit a little self centered ;) Here is a good example of your daily ramblings:
Just now you looked out the window in surprise and said "Oh! i see a see-earl [squirrel] - let's chase it! It ran away. It went to get grape."

Yesterday we used your magnetic letters to practice the word MILK. There was a segment on "World World" about it, and we practiced putting the letters together afterwards. Last night before bed, I showed you a Milk Campaign magazine ad and asked you what the word was. You looked for a second and said "Milk!" which I guess is you reading, right? So your very first word was milk.

You are very good at saying thank you and you're welcome, but you have recently developed an aversion to saying the word please at the right time, even though you are very capable and understand it. You say "I don't like it" when we prompt you. We're working on that one.

On a more grateful note, Saturday night you, Dad and I watched Mamma Mia on HBO. It's not my type of movie but was made more enjoyable by your singing and dancing. After a while you climbed on the couch, hugged Dad and said "I love you Dad". Then you climbed over to me and said "I love you Mommy". A moment later you put your arms around my neck and began to repeat "Thank you so much Mommy. Thank you so much Mommy" while you nuzzled into my shoulders. It was killer.