Sonia’s seemingly exponential language development continued in her 23rd month, and she is picking up a lot from her first month in school as well. Now if only I could figure out how to tame those crazy curls she’s getting 🙂
Sonia continues to be a chatterbox, and for the most part it is now intelligible. She talks mostly in the third person, but every once in awhile will say “I” and “you” in the right place. She knows that saying “please” is “asking nicely,” but still mostly whines or cries when “Sonia want ___.” One thing Sonia says all the time is “Where ___ go?” but she is learning to say “Where is ___?” and answer her own question.
It took Sonia longer to adapt to school than it first seemed it would. The second week she was having huge meltdowns at night and in the mornings, and I ended up keeping her home or picking her up early several days in the 3rd and 4th weeks. The teachers said she seemed like she was having fun all day, but she was only napping about 1 hr, instead of her normal 2-2.5hrs. In addition, there were a couple kids that were pushy, and got a lot of attention because of it, that may have been bothering her emotionally without her really being able to express it. Just when I had reserved to have her nap at home twice a week, this week she started sleeping 2+hrs at school and being much happier in the evenings as well. She is excited to go to school, but wants “Mommy carry you” until I count to 10 in the mornings when I drop her off. I have one more week off work to see if it continues. Hopefully today’s biting incident doesn’t negatively impact her. Sonia was bitten on the arm, hard enough to leave a big mark hours later. While this is a disturbing incident, I was very happy to hear that Sonia stood up for herself by telling the child “Don’t bite Sonia” and “Sonia don’t like that” as well as going up to him several other times that day to say “No biting!”
School has helped Sonia despite the challenges. Her repertoire of songs has dramatically increased, and she has even started extending the songs to other life situations. For example, at dinner one night she started going into the welcome song they do during circle time at school, but substituting Mommy and Daddy for the kids names. Another time she put her farmer sticker on top of a truck sticker and started to sing “Farmer in the truck” instead of “Farmer in the dell.” She also is starting to learn a few letters, with the most memorable being “U for Umbrella” which was the letter they were learning her first week of school, and can sing her ABC’s – sort of. 🙂
Sonia’s spatial reasoning has improved dramatically this month as well, and I do wonder if watching the other kids at school has impacted that. She is now able to unzip her mega bloks bag, and wants to build with the same color and in symmetrical patterns. One of her favorite toys this month has been the animal puzzle blocks she has had since her first birthday. She started with wanting Mommy to “make chicken”, to then being able to pick out all the chicken pieces but put them in the wrong place, to finally, at the end of the month, being able to put all of the pieces together correctly and know which animal would be on the other side when she flipped the puzzle over onto the table. In addition, her coloring has turned into lots and lots of circles and spirals instead of the linear scribbling.
One thing school hasn’t really helped is Sonia’s eating habits. I had hoped that since they emphasize eating time as sitting time and give them open cups to drink from, that she might be better at home. However, she still kicks at the table, stands in her chair and plays with her food. In addition, the food at school is more bland and carb-centric than what she would be getting at home, which has impacted what she will eat for dinner. I still think she eats more veggies, both at home and at school, than most of the other kids, but its not what it once was. Sonia did get a couple “special treats” (aka cupcakes) for her Nanny’s, Daddy’s and classmate’s birthdays this month, which probably didn’t help. 🙂
Another fun adventure this month was Sonia’s first trip to the LA zoo, with her friend Sebastian. It is interesting how things stuck with her from that one short visit. She now says “Elephant at the zoo” and then says “Elephant walking” or “Elephant standing up.” She also knows that the “Giraffe looking at you” (it was very close to the fence where we were watching it) and that the big monkeys she saw are Gorilla’s and the small monkey was a Spider Monkey.
Sonia continues to fight toilet training, even though at the beginning of the month she did do a couple poops in the big toilet, getting our hopes up. Her relationship with Dalton is improving, though. She has learned to gently give him toys, asks about him, and plays alone while I feed him more often. She has her limits though, and doesn’t want him to be on her chair, or takes away her toys if we start having him play with them, and still often defaults to “Mommy carry you” the moment I say I have to feed or carry him.
One unfortunate surprise this month was an allergic reaction Sonia had out of the blue. She got hives all over her cheeks and hands, to the point where she was crying because her swollen hands hurt her. Oddly, there was nothing out of the ordinary that she ate or touched that morning. The pediatrician thought it might have been an immune response that some children get a couple days after getting over a cold or flu, but we will be cutting out bananas and nuts for a few weeks, and then reintroducing them to see if she might have built up an allergy to those somehow.
All in all, while Sonia is really starting to try our patience with her terrible-two tantrums, she is becoming more and more interesting to be around at the same time.
