18 Months: Walking, Talking, Feeding Herself, Becoming Big Sister & Learning AlphabetIt's been quite a busy six months for our busy little girl! Since her last photos at 12 months, she has learned to walk (and then to run!), begun to talk, feeds herself, has become a big sister, mastered the art of getting herself up and down furniture, started potty-training, grown enough hair to need it brushed and put in clips or ponytails every day (and it's gotten curly!), cut ten teeth and is in the process of learning her letters and numbers. Her attention span has gone from being barely able to sit for a 2-minute little cartoon video on the computer to spending over an hour watching children's Bible stories or playing with the iPad.
Abigail's personality is beginning to blossom quite a bit as she begins to speak, since she's now interacting with us a lot. |
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She likes to take our faces in her hands and turn them toward her if we haven't paid attention or haven't understood what she just said, which can be both annoying and really funny. She is still stringing a lot of words together without prepositions, so a typical sentence might go like this: "Mom. Baby. Done?"
Which means she wants to know if Susannah is done nursing yet so she can have a turn.
And yes, she is still nursing. She was quite definitely not ready to quit the whole time I was pregnant, and once milk came back in after Susannah's birth she rapidly put on a few pounds as she got even more enthusiastic. I finally had to cut her back to three times a day because every time she saw "Baby" nursing she figured the milk bar was open and she was ready to line up. I'm sure part of it has to do with her cutting ten teeth pretty much all at the same time (seriously, she cut all ten between May and July), but part is that she stuck it out still nursing when I had no milk at all and when it came back she was a very happy girl.
The first part of her last six months very much revolved around things happening with Grandma Lila, who was one of her favorite people up until the point when Grandma's mind began wandering and Lila was no longer really Lila. One of the saddest things about the way Grandma's mind faded over her last few months was the breaking of her close relationship with Abigail. When Grandma was first staying in the hospital in early April, Abigail would stand sadly outside her bedroom door every morning and ask, "Wa-wa? Wa-wa?" which meant she wanted to know where Lila had gone. When Grandma got home, however, she was so altered that Abigail at first refused to even go near her (she could not understand why Grandma was staying in bed and was quite overjoyed the few times we got Grandma with much difficulty into her wheelchair) and then eventually grew to treat this new Lila in a matter-of-fact but fairly distant way. She had a basket of toys in Grandma's room that she would sit and play with while we were keeping Grandma company, but she no longer brought them all to place in Grandma's lap as she had always used to do and for the most part she pretty much just ignored Grandma. Except for when Ben taught her to pick dandelions and bring them to Grandma: she was very diligent about that and never seemed to forget that Lila liked the flowers. She would also try to feed Grandma from the little sponges that Grandma could suck liquids from and would scrounge sponges out of the garbage and bring them to Grandma saying, "Aaaaah" like we did when we were trying to feed Abigail some new food.
She has not seemed to notice that Grandma is gone at all. The day after Grandma died, she stood in the middle of Lila's room and looked around a little puzzled, but she has never given any indication since that she notices anything strange about her absence.
Then, of course, there has been the situation of our house changing, our staying at different houses while our floor was redone, and Susannah's arrival. She has done pretty well through all the changes, though right now we are dealing with a tendency to throw pretty serious tantrums if the least little thing is not what she wants it to be. Part of training, but still a little disconcerting.
After taking her first steps on her birthday the end of January, Abigail really began walking around the middle of February and learned to run by the middle of March when we first got the addition drywalled and began using it as a house. Up until then I don't think Abigail really knew it WAS a house so much as a big cluttered back porch, but the first day she walked out into the drywalled addition, we watched her face light up as she seemed to suddenly recognize it was part of our house and it was a nice big space. She began pointing at everything and trying to get our attention as she noticed the windows and the big open space. Someone told her she was going to be able to run back and forth in it and for days she would babble and wave her finger "back and forth" excitedly whenever we went out into the addition. To this day, she spends at least some part of every day running full speed from one end of the addition to the other (it helps that her new big-girl bed is at one end, so she always races full-on toward it and dives onto the bed) and usually giggles or says "running running running" while she's doing it. We've been asked if she ever just walks anywhere and the answer is pretty much no...except when we call her and she doesn't really want to come.
She is fascinated with bugs, dirt, rocks and putting things down our furnace registers. One of her favorite things to do (once she became reacquainted with "outside" when it got warm) is to take small pebbles and sticks and poke them down the grid covering our basement window wells. She also likes to trot off down the ramp and head down Lila Boulevard to visit Nana and Grandpa T next door...with or without our knowledge and permission. We're working on that. In the meantime, she thinks the best thing to do outside is head next door to see Heidi, the Turner's cat. Conversely, at my family's house she begins saying "Ball?" the minute we pull into the driveway because she has a blast playing ball in the basement with Uncle Jonathan (who thinks "Ab-by" is pretty fun too).
While Grandma was sick, Abigail learned to spend time sitting in a chair and watching short videos on our computers and to this day very much enjoys "Bible" on Ben's computer. We found a children's Bible on DVD that we liked and Abigail probably knows the whole 2+ hours by heart at this point. She also has a collection of games building up on our iPad that she is very adept at getting into and playing. She's building up a series of small jobs around the house that are hers, such as putting diapers in the garbage, soap in the dishwasher, towels in the laundry basket and holding the bucket for me while we pick green beans in the garden.
She is fascinated with Susannah and has been since she first saw her about ten minutes after Susannah's birth ("ba-y? Ba-y, Mom?") but she's adding to my gray hair since she has no concept of gentleness when it comes to babies and thinks nothing of sitting on Susannah, trying to twist her arms around to see how far they bend, sticking her fingers in Susannah's eyes or down her throat, feeding her things, climbing down into her bed and trying to burp her (whack, whack, whack), or bouncing her so hard in the bouncy chair she nearly catapults her out. I'm not quite sure how anyone survives having older siblings, but it certainly is keeping me on my toes. None of this stuff is malicious, but an 18-month-old's impulsiveness can be a little hard for me to always predict!
All in all, our curly-headed little busy bee is moving right ahead with growing up, and at the rate she's adding words to her vocabulary we're hearing more about what she thinks every day. She's a pretty intense person and can be very single-minded about pursuing what comes into her head; but she is also growing steadily more affectionate (she gives very sweet kisses, even though she thinks kissing is putting her open mouth on us and saying "Oh-wa"), laughs a lot, and is making progress learning to come, stay by us, hold our hands, sit quietly on our laps, and take care of Susannah rather than treating her like an exotic new toy. She's our little girl rather than our baby these days and I'm looking forward to the next six months as she learns to talk to me more.
Which means she wants to know if Susannah is done nursing yet so she can have a turn.
And yes, she is still nursing. She was quite definitely not ready to quit the whole time I was pregnant, and once milk came back in after Susannah's birth she rapidly put on a few pounds as she got even more enthusiastic. I finally had to cut her back to three times a day because every time she saw "Baby" nursing she figured the milk bar was open and she was ready to line up. I'm sure part of it has to do with her cutting ten teeth pretty much all at the same time (seriously, she cut all ten between May and July), but part is that she stuck it out still nursing when I had no milk at all and when it came back she was a very happy girl.
The first part of her last six months very much revolved around things happening with Grandma Lila, who was one of her favorite people up until the point when Grandma's mind began wandering and Lila was no longer really Lila. One of the saddest things about the way Grandma's mind faded over her last few months was the breaking of her close relationship with Abigail. When Grandma was first staying in the hospital in early April, Abigail would stand sadly outside her bedroom door every morning and ask, "Wa-wa? Wa-wa?" which meant she wanted to know where Lila had gone. When Grandma got home, however, she was so altered that Abigail at first refused to even go near her (she could not understand why Grandma was staying in bed and was quite overjoyed the few times we got Grandma with much difficulty into her wheelchair) and then eventually grew to treat this new Lila in a matter-of-fact but fairly distant way. She had a basket of toys in Grandma's room that she would sit and play with while we were keeping Grandma company, but she no longer brought them all to place in Grandma's lap as she had always used to do and for the most part she pretty much just ignored Grandma. Except for when Ben taught her to pick dandelions and bring them to Grandma: she was very diligent about that and never seemed to forget that Lila liked the flowers. She would also try to feed Grandma from the little sponges that Grandma could suck liquids from and would scrounge sponges out of the garbage and bring them to Grandma saying, "Aaaaah" like we did when we were trying to feed Abigail some new food.
She has not seemed to notice that Grandma is gone at all. The day after Grandma died, she stood in the middle of Lila's room and looked around a little puzzled, but she has never given any indication since that she notices anything strange about her absence.
Then, of course, there has been the situation of our house changing, our staying at different houses while our floor was redone, and Susannah's arrival. She has done pretty well through all the changes, though right now we are dealing with a tendency to throw pretty serious tantrums if the least little thing is not what she wants it to be. Part of training, but still a little disconcerting.
After taking her first steps on her birthday the end of January, Abigail really began walking around the middle of February and learned to run by the middle of March when we first got the addition drywalled and began using it as a house. Up until then I don't think Abigail really knew it WAS a house so much as a big cluttered back porch, but the first day she walked out into the drywalled addition, we watched her face light up as she seemed to suddenly recognize it was part of our house and it was a nice big space. She began pointing at everything and trying to get our attention as she noticed the windows and the big open space. Someone told her she was going to be able to run back and forth in it and for days she would babble and wave her finger "back and forth" excitedly whenever we went out into the addition. To this day, she spends at least some part of every day running full speed from one end of the addition to the other (it helps that her new big-girl bed is at one end, so she always races full-on toward it and dives onto the bed) and usually giggles or says "running running running" while she's doing it. We've been asked if she ever just walks anywhere and the answer is pretty much no...except when we call her and she doesn't really want to come.
She is fascinated with bugs, dirt, rocks and putting things down our furnace registers. One of her favorite things to do (once she became reacquainted with "outside" when it got warm) is to take small pebbles and sticks and poke them down the grid covering our basement window wells. She also likes to trot off down the ramp and head down Lila Boulevard to visit Nana and Grandpa T next door...with or without our knowledge and permission. We're working on that. In the meantime, she thinks the best thing to do outside is head next door to see Heidi, the Turner's cat. Conversely, at my family's house she begins saying "Ball?" the minute we pull into the driveway because she has a blast playing ball in the basement with Uncle Jonathan (who thinks "Ab-by" is pretty fun too).
While Grandma was sick, Abigail learned to spend time sitting in a chair and watching short videos on our computers and to this day very much enjoys "Bible" on Ben's computer. We found a children's Bible on DVD that we liked and Abigail probably knows the whole 2+ hours by heart at this point. She also has a collection of games building up on our iPad that she is very adept at getting into and playing. She's building up a series of small jobs around the house that are hers, such as putting diapers in the garbage, soap in the dishwasher, towels in the laundry basket and holding the bucket for me while we pick green beans in the garden.
She is fascinated with Susannah and has been since she first saw her about ten minutes after Susannah's birth ("ba-y? Ba-y, Mom?") but she's adding to my gray hair since she has no concept of gentleness when it comes to babies and thinks nothing of sitting on Susannah, trying to twist her arms around to see how far they bend, sticking her fingers in Susannah's eyes or down her throat, feeding her things, climbing down into her bed and trying to burp her (whack, whack, whack), or bouncing her so hard in the bouncy chair she nearly catapults her out. I'm not quite sure how anyone survives having older siblings, but it certainly is keeping me on my toes. None of this stuff is malicious, but an 18-month-old's impulsiveness can be a little hard for me to always predict!
All in all, our curly-headed little busy bee is moving right ahead with growing up, and at the rate she's adding words to her vocabulary we're hearing more about what she thinks every day. She's a pretty intense person and can be very single-minded about pursuing what comes into her head; but she is also growing steadily more affectionate (she gives very sweet kisses, even though she thinks kissing is putting her open mouth on us and saying "Oh-wa"), laughs a lot, and is making progress learning to come, stay by us, hold our hands, sit quietly on our laps, and take care of Susannah rather than treating her like an exotic new toy. She's our little girl rather than our baby these days and I'm looking forward to the next six months as she learns to talk to me more.
