Celia is 17 months old today! She has just reached 20 pounds and is up to the 10th percentile for weight. Her hair is finally getting longer and makes her look like a little girl. And it's curly too :)
So, on to all the fun developmental stuff that's been happening.
Speech and Language: Pita's vocabulary continues to grow. She uses and understands several concept words like hot/cold, empty/full, in/out, etc. She is starting to use action words like "sit", "run", and "go". She counts to ten, names colors, and is starting to name and identify letters. She can sing a handful of songs. She's also using 2-word phrases more often and shocked me by using a couple of 3-word phrases recently. She uses language for all kinds of purposes, and her 2 word utterances are nicely varied (different combinations of nouns, verbs, modifiers). The other day Pita was looking at a book, and said clear as day "I'm reading". Chris and I just looked at each other with our mouths open. This morning one of the cats was sitting by the door, and Celia said "Cat go outside". Then she said "I sit down" and sat on the floor. Most of the time she still uses one or two words at a time, but it's amazing that she has started using three word phrases! Her speech is becoming clearer and she uses more adult-like patterns. For example, she used to say "boo boo" for both "baby" and "binkie". Now she says both words clearly. Mkay, enough speech/language therapist talk.
Cognitive/Play Skills: I think I've mentioned this before, but development of play is how cognitive skills are manifested in babies and young children. They learn by playing, and there are developmental milestones related to play that demonstrate cognitive level. Anyway, it's just really cool to see this development progress in your own child.
Celia's pretend play is becoming more complex. She loves dolls now and it's so cute! She carries her baby everywhere, feeds her, puts her to sleep, uses the doll as an agent by pretending the doll is doing different things (takes the doll's hand and has her hold a toy or play with something). Another thing she loves is playing in her kitchen. Rather than just opening and closing the doors and moving things around, her play is now more purposeful. She puts pots on the stove and turns the knobs to turn the stove on. She takes food in and out of the microwave and pushes the buttons. She brings food to us from her kitchen, and narrates what she's doing by talking while she plays. She still loves to climb into things, and she's really into sitting in her little toddler-sized chairs. Yesterday I caught her trying to climb into a kitchen drawer. Finally, Celia did one thing recently that was SO amazing! She came crawling into the kitchen saying "ruff ruff, dog!", and I asked what she was doing and she just kept saying "dog". It took me a second to realize that she was pretending to be a dog! Cutest thing ever. Since then she's done this a couple more times.
Self Help Skills: Pita knows when she needs to wipe her nose or mouth, and asks for a tissue. She cleans up things she drops or spills on the floor. She tries SO hard to put on her own shoes and socks. Yesterday she fell asleep in the car, in the middle of trying to put her shoe on!
Fine Motor Skills: Celia can pick up tiny objects. She likes playing with stickers. She scribbles with thick crayons and imitates simple movements with them. She tries to put pieces in puzzles but can't do it yet.
Gross Motor Skills: Celia wants to climb on everything, has the movement pattern for going up and down stairs foot over foot (but needs help to keep her balance), and can run a little.
Behavior: We continue to see some typical defiant toddler behavior, mostly when Celia's tired. When she doesn't get something she wants or if something is taken away from her, she tends to have little tantrums that last about two seconds. She no longer says "no" to everything, which is nice :). She loves to run away from us when we need her to come to us for a diaper change or to get dressed. Overall she continues to be very well-behaved, happy, and easily adaptable to new situations.
I can't believe my little monkey will be one and a half in another month!
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