It continues to amaze us how every month we think Sonia is so big and has made so many advancements, and then we are blown away by what she does in just one more month.
This month Sonia has been practicing and improving her short sentences, and it really feels like we can now understand each other for the most part. Sometimes it takes a little guessing though, since she still has lots of work to do on the harder consonants. In those cases we try not to tell her we can’t understand her, we just say the things it might be until she says “yeah” after one of them. Also, sometimes it seems like she doesn’t think through what she’s saying, and that it’s still more a memorized pattern. For example, she almost always adds a “mama” when she’s asking or showing something even when she’s talking to Daddy or the nanny, and answers most questions with “yeah.”
By the end of the month she has learned to recite several nursery rhymes from start to finish (e.g. pat-a-cake, itsy bitsy spider, and row-row-row-your-boat), as well as sections of some of her books (e.g. Little Blue Truck). She will often start into these at random, so it must be for her like when we get a song stuck in our head. She is also getting better with colors and numbers. She can pick out the right colors when asked to “find the green ball”, but can only produce the right word about 50% of the time, and usually guesses “blue” for any color.
In addition to language development, Sonia has been working on her fine motor skills, though the slow development of these have led to some serious frustrations throughout the month. Her absolute favorite toy is her flashcards. She is very good at reciting what the pictures are, but she also likes to take them one by one and stack them in her hands. This led to several crying fits when she would drop them or couldn’t get them as straight as she wanted. Another thing that still frustrates her is blankets. She started to like to put the Aden & Anais swaddlers on her chair or spread out on the floor and then sit in it or have ribbit and monkey lay down on it. Inevitably, doing that would make it not straight, and her small wingspan and lack of fine motor skills made it impossible for her to make it do what she wanted, resulting in more crying fits. We continue to tell her that it takes work and practice and eventually she will get it, while also teaching her how we do it. This seems to help, and she is already getting better about it.
Being able to be taught how to do things is something else new we’ve noticed. For example, as Sonia has started using utensils more and more to eat, she started to pick up some rather messy ways of handling them. However, with some physical and verbal direction she now can do it more correctly – though only when we pay attention and ask her to, of course.
As these skills, and her independence, start to develop, a few battlegrounds are popping up, such as at the dinner table. Sonia always wants to eat what someone else has and give her food to whoever is at the table with her. She kicks her legs which shakes the table, and makes a mess by putting her dirty hands and utensils in her seat, or drops them on the floor. Perhaps in part because we see these skills developing, we are pushing her to the next level, but this does result in tested boundaries, with no real method of punishment available other than stopping her from doing what she was doing again and again. This could get uglier as the months roll on, but we’ll have to see. Thankfully, she still is good about eating a good and healthy variety of foods, although she definitely has a sweet tooth like Mommy.
Her gross motor skills are pretty strong as well. In My Gym, it is obvious that she is now one of the more advanced kids in the group (14-24mo). She now can climb the ladders with ease, has improved her grip, and can run across the “hot dog” by herself. She also is able to get her feet off the ground finally while jumping on the trampoline! She also loves to play on the big swing, on the see-saw, and in the sand at the park.
Sonia’s social skills continue to develop as well, just in time for the arrival of her little brother (or maybe in part because of that event?). From the first night, Sonia understood that he was another person, and wanted to share her milk and lovey with him. She also likes to shake the rattles for him, although a little too violently for my liking. At the park and at story time at the library Sonia has started engaging with other kids and sharing toys in the sand. When Aaron and Sebastian came over to meet the new baby, she also engaged with them and their toys – although had to be asked to share.
At the same time, her ability to play independently has increased. Some of her favorite playthings include the ages 4+ airplane puzzle, her mega blocks, and stackers.
However, she still would rather someone be there to play with her. The only time I have noted any jealously of Dalton is in the mornings when it is just me with them. Then, she comes crying to say “carry you” and “Dalton down” as soon as I go to tend to him. If the Nanny or Daddy are there to play with her, though, she doesn’t care what Mommy and Dalton are doing most of the time. This was made especially clear on the day the Nanny called in sick. The morning was very rough because Dalton was sleepy, but wouldn’t go to sleep unless I was carrying him, and Sonia wanted Mommy to play with her. Eventually, Sonia started to play by herself a little more, and I got Dalton to sleep on his tummy, but it certainly is draining being pulled in so many directions and wanting to please everyone.
Besides Dalton’s arrival, there were a number of other fun events this month. At Thanksgiving we let Sonia watch a little bit of the Macy’s parade, and she really enjoyed the dancers and bands. She even tried to kick along with the Rockettes! 🙂
Sonia had a much bigger hand in Christmas preparations this year and has picked up some of the traditions with glee. She went with Daddy to pick out the Christmas tree, and even helped hang some ornaments. She got to build a gingerbread house with the Nanny, and go to the Zoo Lights with Daddy. Thanks to a couple books she received as gifts, she knows who Rudolph and Santa Claus are, though not necessarily what they mean yet.
One final new fun experience was getting to play in the rain! It started with her asking to touch the “fountain” coming off our stuffed gutters after one downpour, and then Mommy made the mistake of letting her reach out at touch the rain during the next. From there on out, all we heard was “touch it rain” and finally decided she should have the chance to experience it. Just like she was with pools during the summer, the poor thing would have died of hypothermia if we’d have let her stay out there as long as she wanted. Such a fish!
Physically, Sonia is filling in again (including her hair a bit), and may have gotten a little bit taller as well. She is now around 24.5 lb and 33″ (60th %). She certainly feels heavier, but maybe that is just in comparison to Dalton. She also got a runny nose again during the last week of this month, but still no sign of her canine teeth.