I'm well into my pregnancy now, 22 weeks at the moment. The energy has come back and the excitement is growing, and... it's a BOY! Supposedly this baby boy is currently the size of a papaya but it looks like he is the size of a watermelon already. During our 20 week ultrasound, it showed him moving around like crazy but I couldn't feel him at all. But a few days after the appointment, I began feeling him kicking away. I'm already getting tired thinking about chasing after baby boy.
But anyway, this post is supposed to be about Makayla so here goes.. you get a 2fer again this time. Much of M's development continues to be in the area of language. I've already given up jotting down all of the words she speaks because I just can't keep up anymore. Not only that, but I also know that I don't hear a lot of the words M says so there's really no point in continuing the list.
When M turned 19 months old, she started speaking in 2 word phrases much more often. Fun fact: I read somewhere that children start speaking in phrases when they have learned about 50 words. In the beginning, she was using possessives "Mommy's chair", "Daddy's water" (not sure if she was actually using 's'). Then she moved onto using noun + verb "Elmo fall" or even noun + present participle "Daddy's sleeping". She's also beginning to use pronouns: he, I. The transition from using self- and other- referring names (e.g., "Makayla" and "Mommy") to personal pronouns (e.g., "I" and "you") is an important one and we are beginning to see the transition now-- how exciting! My research professor and I published a paper on parent input relating to child's acquisition of personal pronouns a few years ago (see abstract here: http://www.researchgate.net/
When she turned 20 months old, she moved onto more 3 word phrases as well as speech expressing desire (e.g., "I want it"). Occasionally she'll surprise us with certain more advanced sentences/phrases such as "I wanna watch Yo Gabba Gabba", "Let me sit down" or "Go away" both in Chinese and English. In fact, Eric was commenting on how weird it was that he can have a back and forth conversation with M. Nowadays she doesn't babble much, and when she does, she does it on purpose and smiles at us because she knows she's being silly.
More important than but related to the quantity of the words M knows and can put together is her ability to communicate with us through speech. One word in particular is the word "owie" because she is very good about telling us what body part is in pain and we can help take care of her pain. She also holds out her hands during or after meals and says "wipe hands" in Chinese. I also appreciate when she says "Mommy help", "Mommy hold me" in Chinese, or "cold". It has really reduced the amount of crying or whining.
One really exciting development is her ability to identify most of the letters in the alphabet. One day, we were at Costco, and she started correctly pointing out the letters written on the shopping cart. Before that point, every letter was an 'A' or 'O' :) Since then, she has been excited to point out letters when she sees them, her favorite being W, probably because it's so fun to say. She is also now a pro at identifying colors and basic shapes.
I have caught Makayla talking in her sleep a few times, which means she dreams (she probably has been for awhile now). She said "Bubbles, Mommy, Daddy, Choo Choo Train, and Foofa" all in her sleep.
Makayla can count.. well, sort of :) She understands that when someone says "How many ants are there?" that she's supposed to count them. She doesn't quite understand that each object corresponds to each number, however. If there are 3 flowers on a page, she will recount flowers and end up with 5. If there are 10 ants, she will count 3 ants, and then stop.
Her memory amazes me. We have recently introduced her to the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear". She has loved the book ever since we started singing it to her. It didn't take her long to memorize the sequence of animals that appear in the book.
M has begun to scream a lot. Thank God it's not your typical toddler temper tantrum scream, which I'm sure we'll encounter within the next year. It's this high pitched I'm happy and I feel like screaming. It's delightful and disturbing at the same time :)
We (including Raissa) are continuing to expose M to new experiences. Within these past 2 months, M has gone to the LA Zoo, Pretend City, Elmo's musical, Long Beach Aquarium, Bubblefest (at the Discovery Science Center), Alaska/Canada/Seattle cruise. We have also started taking her to swimming lessons (on top of ballet and MyGym). In the beginning, she loved being in the pool but really did not like getting held by the instructor. She has since come a long way and is now going through the steps like pro!
Makayla anecdotes:
Raissa has a green stick she keeps around the house for punishment. It doesn't really get used but comes out every once in awhile when the boys are out of line as a threat. One day Raissa was yelling at Jed for something he had done. M gets ahold of the green stick and walks toward Jed as he awaits his punishment ;)
Raissa keeps the door to her mom's room closed so M can't get in to rummage around. One day, M noticed that the door was open. She then glanced at Raissa's mom who was busy in the kitchen cooking. M slowly walked toward the bedroom while keeping her eyes on Raissa's mom to make sure she could sneak in without getting caught. Of course Raissa was witnessing all of this as it was happening :)
One day, Eric was drinking coffee from his mug. M points to the mug and says "coffee, I want some"
**Pictures and videos to come...
