Kate: 17 Months |
The language explosion is in full effect as Kate continues to talk up a storm! I’ve been writing her words down on a Post-It when we hear them, and that sucker is covered from front to back. I can hardly keep up with her! Here are the ones I managed to capture on that little 3” x 3” piece of paper:
Cup
Bib
Hug
Messy
Milk
Kabooey (a word Grandma Pam made up—she loves it)
Sippy
Applesauce
Farkel (a travel dice game—she carries the little container around everywhere)
Sky
Cookie
Puppy
Potty
Shopping
Sunscreen
Plate
Hey (said if I take her plate away thinking she’s done eating, but she’s not)
Moon
Baby
Goodbye
Two
Three
Doggy
Poopy
Pee
Horsey
Keys
Light
Ducky
Kate
Thanks
Bug
Syrup
Yogurt
Slide
Medicine
Yellow (which appears to be her favorite color)
Doorbell
Guitar
Marker
Bottle
She’s starting to put words together, too:
“All gone” (when she’s out of food—usually fruit)
“Get down” (when she wants down from being held)
“Snuggle Puppy” (one of her favorite books)
“More, please” (when she wants more food—usually fruit)
“Hold this” (usually asking someone to hold Bunny so she can use both hands to drink from her sippy cup)
“Bless you” (after someone sneezes)
“Have a good day!” (My personal favorite to hear—and her personal favorite to say…to everyone at Target…over and over again.)
She’s also beginning to string letters of the alphabet together and is starting to say some numbers in counting order. At bedtime she sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with me as I get her into her pajamas. I pause at parts of the song and let her fill in the blanks with “sky” and “high,” and when we get to the end of the song she says, “Up a…” to get me to start it over again. It’s so much fun to see her wheels turning as she tries to figure these things out!
The neat thing about this month is realizing that she really does understand the words she’s saying (versus last month, which was mainly repeating words after we said them first). For example, she’ll pick fruit out of the fruit bowl and tell me what they are as she goes: “Apple…pear….nana.” Then she’ll see a picture of an apple on one of her books, point to it and say, “Apple.”
Another example is this exchange between G and Kate after one of her meals:
G: “Kate, you made a mess.”
Kate: “Messy.” Then she walked over to get the broom and attempted sweeping up the food on the floor around her chair.
One day she even requested her snack! As we walked into the kitchen I casually asked her, “Kate, what would you like for your snack today?” not at all expecting a response.
“Cookie,” she replied.
“Um…okay,” I replied in awe as I heated up an oatmeal banana cookie and realized we were having an actual conversation. “Any other requests?”
“Eggs,” she stated.
“You want eggs, too?” I asked skeptically.
“Eggs,” she repeated. (And if she had a greater understanding of the English language I’m pretty sure she would’ve added, “Get on it.” That’ll come next month, I’m sure.)
G walked in the kitchen shortly afterwards, looked at Kate’s plate and then at me with surprise and said, “A cookie and scrambled eggs? For snack?”
I explained what happened, and added, “Hey, I asked, she answered. How could I not honor her request after that?!”
Of course 17 months hasn’t been all fun and games and cookies and eggs. Kate is also doing some testing. Most notable has been her desire to be picked up and held or carried constantly. She went through this phase right around the time she turned a year old, and we were so grateful when it passed.
Now it’s back.
Sometimes I feel like a car in one of those radios station contests—whoever touches it the longest without letting go, wins it. I’m the Toyota Scion and Kate’s the overzealous contestant who has absolutely no problems peeing in her pants versus taking a bathroom break so as not to break contact with any part of my skin.
It’s not that I mind holding Kate, of course, but what I don’t like is when she comes up to me and fusses to be picked up—or even worse, just screams at me and tugs on my clothes. That is definitely not the kind of behavior this Toyota wants on board! We’ve been working on teaching Kate manners and she already knows the words “up” and “please,” so I began asking her to say, “Up, please” in a nice voice and when she does that she gets rewarded with being picked up. When she comes to me guns blazing, she stays on the ground. It took her all of 20 minutes to master the magic of manners. Now she calmly and politely requests, “Up please” when she wants to be picked up—and that’s a request we’ll gladly honor!
Kate has also put “diaper changing struggles” back into her rotation of behaviors to bust out just when Mom and Dad think everything’s going great. A couple of months ago I shared a trick I used with baby pictures that worked great for awhile, but it lost a bit of its luster this month. My new trick? Musical greeting cards. We got one for G for Father’s Day that has little cartoon animals on it and sings a silly song in a funny voice—she is absolutely mesmerized by it! She only gets to play with it when she’s on the changing table, so (for now) diaper changes are back to going smoothly.
I’ll end with this video of Kate enjoying the toy blender Grandma Pam got her. She was making her very first faux smoothie!
Additional Kate 17 Months Posts:
Sidewalk Chalk
Fourth of July Weekend
such a beautiful photo! And when did Kate get so big!?!? Oy…
It’s amazing how quickly they pick up on things and their vocabulary – my daughter is just a couple months younger than Kate and it amazes me every day what she is learning!
We also have some diaper changing struggles that just won’t go away. We actually have used the musical card distraction before and most recently have started changing her as she is standing (a little challenging at times…but much better than having her lay down). Just over the weekend, I started changing her in the bathroom, laying a towel on the floor and having her lay down…she pretty much thinks it’s the bees knees – diaper changes are over in less than 30 seconds. Yay for now…we’ll see what happens next week…:)
Love your monthly posts!
Caleb’s favortie color appears to be yellow as well….That’s the only color we can get him to say, and he says it very well! I wonder if he got that from kate?
Great update on Kate! So fun that she’s talking up a storm! Sandra Boynton is one of our favorite childhood authors – we have a couple of her CDs as well. See if you can download the Snuggle Puppy song on your iPod – Will loves to sing it to his puppy!
Hi Dusty, Just browsing your blog and I was wondering is that an orange blanket or piece of fabric on your foot rest/ottoman? Either way, where did you get it? Thanks!
Kara
wow! I can not believe how many words she says!! That is awesome, Dusty!! Congrats on such a sweetie!! I love how her hair is getting longer too, so cute. Maura’s going to be a year in less than a month and I just can’t believe it. I’m getting sad that the bababy stage is over, but seeing this makes me excited for all these other cool developments! Plus, who doesn’t love eggs with a cookie;)
Love the video – she is getting so big! And isn’t it amazing when their language starts erupting like that? So awesome.
Wow…she just sprouted up overnight didn’t she?! I cannot believe she’s already talking so much!
You are a marvelous mommy and she is getting to be such a little person! Love.
jbhat
oooh, your daughter has a great birthday! she was born exactly 35 years to the day after me. 😀
Thank you for your comments, everyone!
@Desiree–So glad you found a diaper changing trick that works for your little one!
@Catherine–Aw, how cute! I bet they are teaching each other all sorts of fun things at daycare. Caleb is such a little cutie–I love seeing him when I drop Kate off in the mornings!
@Kadi–Thanks for the Snuggle Puppy tip; I’ll look into that for Kate!
@Kara–That’s actually a table runner that I threw over the ottoman for a little pop of color…and to hide a stain, lol! I got it on clearance from Pottery Barn a couple of years ago.
@Sarah–Happy birthday to Maura! It’s amazing how quickly that first year goes by, isn’t it? I hope you guys have a blast celebrating making it through that first year of parenting. I’ll toast to that!
@Mandy–Oh my goodness, YES! It has been so much fun to hear.
@Tarah–Sad, but true. I still call her “my baby” though. Not sure that’ll ever pass!
Thank you so much jbhat; such a sweet comment.
@Pam–Gotta love those Capricorns!