It’s the end of August already?! Has it seriously been a month since I posted the first of my monthly intentions to document how Little Miss Ziggity changes and grows into her own unique person?
It’s true what they say. The days may be long, but the years sure go by fast. Actually, even the days whiz by with startling speed. It’s the moments – the patrolling of dangerous activities, the putting to bed, the persuading to eat – that seem to slink along at a snail’s pace.
However it happens, my little bug is now 21 months old. As a highlight of the month, we finally booked and went for a photo shoot with our favourite Salt Spring Island photographer, to try to push the pause button on our quickly-growing girl, and save a memory of how she is right now. I feel so blessed to have met Billie Woods and have her follow us along on our journey, carefully preserving our special memories from our wedding, my giant pregnant belly, our newborn babe, to this busy and extremely loveable toddler. If you’re looking to find someone to help you capture your own timeless memories, I highly suggest you check out her website and give her a call.
So, how has the Little Miss changed over the last month?
Speech
Beyond constantly adding new words to her repertoire, Z’s been working hard to perfect certain sounds. As she gains more control of her voice as her oral motor control continues to develop, she has taught herself how to make the “l” and “th” sounds. These are some of the trickiest sounds for children to make, as it requires bringing your tongue up to the top of your mouth and front teeth, so I’m pretty proud of my little bean, who shows pride in herself when she properly annunciates words like “Bella” (a beloved playmate) and “bath” (one of the favourite parts of her days).
“G” and “ch” sounds are still a bit beyond her skills for the moment, but we will be trying to use more words with these sounds in the coming month to see if we can encourage them to come out.
Emotional recognition
This past month Z has started to show a significant interest in the emotions of others. Specifically “sad” and “happy”. Aside from using these words to connect with faces in books and on people in real life – including herself at times – she has created a game she thoroughly enjoys that I like to call the “Happy-Sad Game”. It goes like this: I’ll make a sad face, initially connected to something that made me “sad” (having a kiss refused, accidently hurting myself), then Z comes up to me (or whoever the “sad” person is) and gives a kiss or a hug and when she sees the expression change from a frown to a smile she becomes excited and exclaims “Happy!” She also pulls out the sign for happy to reiterate her point, which I was surprised she remembered since I haven’t used it with her in months.
Now that she’s showing an interest, I’d like to put together a book of different emotions, with real pictures of faces she knows, to help encourage further development in recognizing and labeling feelings. I’ll let you know what this ends up as when we get there.
Pretending and imaginary play
I’ve been blown away at how early little Z started engaging in imaginary play. She’s been feeding babies and driving cars for a long while now, but just in this last month I’ve noticed a big jump in her creating her own pretend world. Carrots and other food items have been horses, galloping around her high chair tray, or other various animals, she swims around the tub, splashing and making dolphin noises, and makes “babies” and all sorts of other representational things out of playdough to use as props in her play.
I look forward to the days when we can run around together, reliving the days of my youth as Laura and Mary from Little House on the Prairie, sweeping the dirt driveway with my moms indoor broom.
Little Miss Independence
Z’s quest for independence continues this month. This month she has decided she wants to have a say in what she wears each day. She also prefers to practice her self-help skills of getting dressed, moving from putting on her own pants and undies (“potty training” is still moving along swimmingly, by the way), to attempting to put on shirts.
While it’s interesting to see her style develop, it also takes a lot of patience to wait for her to make choice, then try to get those clothes on. I know it’s best to let her keep trying herself, to build up those skills and her self-confidence, but there are times when we need to move quickly to make it in time for the day’s plans. It’s so hard to see her upset because I have to take over, but what is a late mama to do?
Another step towards more independence (and hopefully a less sore back for mama) is her desire and ability to walk alongside us on hikes. I’ve been impressed at how far she can go, and actually keep up with us, before she tires herself out.
Oh look, another owwie.
With all this independence comes a lot of misjudgement. It seems like every day at least one good accident happens to leave Z with a scraped knee, a bruise, or a bump on the noggin. It’s a good thing she’s tough, because this growing and adjusting to the growing body thing has been pretty hard on the wee one. It’s pretty amazing how quickly she heals those wounds. If only I could recover from the anxiety of these tumbles as speedily.
Sleep? Are we there yet??
Sleep seemed to regress a bit this last month. After a few bad nights of waking, screaming, and wanting to get up and out of bed for an hour of more each time, several times a night, me and Dear Old Hubby G were losing our minds a bit. We had to do something to get the rest we needed, so I decided it was time to completely cut Little Miss off of nursing during the night. Before, I was hesitant to do this as I felt it was helping her through the pain of teething and that her little tummy, which didn’t get a ton of nourishment into it during the day, would need some food during the night. But, enough is enough, and sleep is taking a top priority right now.
It didn’t take very long – a couple of nights – for Z to adjust to the fact that she would not be able to nurse after bedtime until the next morning. Now, I’m happy to say that she sleeps for longer periods at night, and when she does wake, she can easily go back to sleep with a snuggle, and sometimes not even that.
I don’t know if you can fully understand how happy this makes me. We’re getting there! Sleep, how I love you.
Future designer?
Something that becomes more and more intriguing for little Z is the placement of objects. A very popular activity for her to engage in is the setting up of different items. Toys, balls, dolls, food, and anything else that catches her eye demands her designing skills to lay everything out, in a very particular way. Every so often she will step back, look at her work, and either nod approval or decide to move something ever so slightly.
Perhaps we have an interior decorator on our hands? Goodness knows our house could use some help. A sense of style has never come naturally to me.
Knuckles
Every time we say goodbye to someone, Z insists on giving them hugs, high-fives and often kisses. Thanks to Daddy’s lessons, now she can also add fist bumps to the goodbye routine.
Helping Out
We have always included Z in helping out with the household chores, as much and as early as she has been able to. Some new things that she has taken up this month include helping out in the kitchen – baking muffins, granola bars, power balls, macaroni, etc. – and helping to wash the dishes.
If you’re curious what else we enlist her help with, or what you might want to try with your own little ones, check out this post all about getting a toddler to help out, and find more ideas in this post on making life easier with a toddler.
Before I send you on your way, I just have to include a few more photos of special moments and firsts from this last month.
