Somewhat scattered 20-month Alex update.

[rivka]

Alex at 20 months: I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me. These days it's all about being just like Mama, and Mama being just like her. Where I go: "Coming ME!" What I have: "Alex's tea mug too?" What she has: "Mama bread and butter too?" Where she goes: "Come with me!" What she does: "Mama bath too?" On the one hand, very flattering, and sometimes totally cute - like when she talked me into giving her a (wrapped) tea bag in an (empty) tea mug, carried it carefully into the living room, set it on a coaster, climbed up on the couch, and pretended to drink from it with a satisfied "aaaah." On the other hand, so annoying sometimes, when I don't really want to have a steamed carrot mashed into my mouth or a 24-pound weight on my hip while I'm trying to cook. She's even got to be "Coming ME!" when all I'm doing is walking across the room.

She's also obsessed with keeping tabs on both of us. Questions we hear a dozen times a day: "Papa doing?" "Mama go?" "Mama, are you?!" (If that doesn't make sense, it's because the 'where' is missing.) An interesting corollary to this one is that, while she loves playing hide-and-seek and asks to play it several times a day, it is very very important that everyone in the game know exactly where everyone else is at all times. If - for even one brief moment - she fears that we might actually be stumped, she pops out of her hiding place immediately.

Her play is much richer. She loves the long ritual searches when we play hide-and-seek. ("Is she under the pillow? No. Is she behind the coats? No." She loves this so much that she will actually creep out of her hiding place and suggest more places for us to look.) She loves to stand at the kitchen sink pouring water from one cup to another, pretending to mix up a batch of scrambled eggs with a saucepan and a spoon, and "washing dishes." She acts out little scenarios with her toys: a favorite one involves loading books into the dump truck and driving it to the library. Lately, everything that stands still, from Mama to a stuffed llama, has been getting a doctor exam. They used to all be well-child visits, but yesterday I overheard the llama being informed that his ears hurt.

She's got a lot of stereotypically-male interests: trains, dinosaurs, construction equipment, helicopters, tall block towers. And yet, her toys, including the dinosaurs, do an awful lot of kissing and hugging. My favorite example of this was when she made a zebra puzzle piece run away across the rug. I picked up a lion puzzle piece and chased the zebra. Alex's zebra promptly turned around, came back, and kissed the lion on the lips. (The lion was too nonplussed to attack.)

She's become much stronger, more coordinated, more graceful. She handles playground equipment well - even tricky stuff like the 45-degree-slant rope netting at the children's museum. She walks on tiptoes, runs, marches, walks backward, spins in circles. Her dancing is more sustained and more elaborate. She climbs steps sturdily. She stands on a chair at the kitchen sink and reaches for things in the drainboard, without toppling. She likes to stand on things and climb in things and walk along things. She's working on hopping and standing on one foot, with great dedication but not much success.

She speaks in sentences. Well, obviously: who is likely to forget "Uh-oh, coffee bean in nose"? But she also produces sentences like, "Mama hurt a little bit." "Alex drive truck a library." "Alex hold a medicine." "Good night, Papa, see you later - morning." She provides ongoing narration for her experiences: "Alex stack a blocks. Fall down. Try again, Alex."

She loves all the little verbal social rituals. Particularly goodbyes: we can be halfway home from playgroup, and Alex will still be saying "Bye Emily, Zoe! See you later Suzanne!" When we go for walks, she loves to greet, and then say goodbye to, everyone we pass. (It's probably a good thing that we don't live in New York. Marylanders take it well.) She routinely says "thank you" when we give her something, and when we deal with cashiers or clerks. She likes to go around the table at dinner, thanking everyone. "Thanks, Mama! Thanks, Papa!" Including herself, of course: "Thanks, Pumpkinhead! You welcome." "Please" is a long way behind "thank you," probably because it's hard to concentrate on manners when you want something. Adorably, the latest addition to her repertoire of social rituals has been a number of bedtime phrases. "Good night! Sleep well! Sweet dreams! See you morning!"

She's starting to show the beginnings of empathy. She's troubled when other children cry. If I say "Ouch!", even from another room, Alex runs to ask me, "Mama okay?" She loves to share things with us (not so much with other kids); she gave me a piece of mango once and then asked, with a shining, happy face, "Mama's mango tasty?"

She loves to chime in words in a well-known song, or complete lines in a book I'm reading.

"The driver on the bus goes..." "Move BACK!"
"His mother called him 'wild thing,' and Max said..." "Eat uh up!"

Sometimes her verbal memory is astounding. We got Mr. Brown Can Moo from the library two months after we last checked it out. On the second reading, Alex was able to produce, unprompted, every single sound that Mr. Brown can make, from "Eek eek" like a squeaky shoe to "Grum" like a hippopotamus chewing gum. (Don't ask.)

Some critical pieces of language are still missing, as is of course developmentally appropriate. Question words usually get left out of questions. She likes to ask "Papa go?" "Happened?" "Dinosaur doing?" I don't think she uses any form of the verb "to be." She has just started using "my" as a personal pronoun, and it still sounds kind of laborious - as if she's struggling to think of how the words go together. "My go upstairs in bedroom!" She doesn't ever say "you" (except in stock phrases like "see you later"), or any other pronoun.

She can count objects correctly to about five. She can rote count correctly to twelve, after which it usually goes "fourteen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, eighteen, nineteen, twenty." She still likes letters, although she's not as obsessed with them as she used to be. She loves shapes, and searches them out endlessly. A few days ago she pointed excitedly out the car window and said "Octagon!" And indeed, it turned out that across an intersection from us she could see the back of a stop sign. (The back. She didn't even have the color cues to associate "stop sign = octagon." Yeesh.)

Let's see, what else? Her eating has improved dramatically. She always ate a good range of healthy foods, but the quantities were sometimes homeopathic - especially with meat. Now it's not unusual for her to eat two or three ounces of meat at a time. I've seen her eat a dozen baby carrots in a sitting, plus meat and bread and milk. She's eaten nearly an entire five-pound crate of clementines by herself. She can eat half a pomegranate in one sitting - and will, if you're patient enough to pick the seeds apart for her. She loves the occasional piece of chocolate we give her, but she doesn't generally seem to have that much of a sweet tooth. She'll ask for a Christmas cookie, take a few nibbles, give me a bite, and then put it down and wander away.

Our biggest issues with her these days are the clinginess mentioned in the first paragraph, and her sleep. She still sleeps through the night, mercifully, but it takes a very very very long time to get her to sleep at night. She'll be heavy-lidded and rubbing her eyes on the way upstairs, but let me just try to put her in the crib and she bounces up, refreshed and ready to play. It used to be that I could put her down awake, and she would play for a little while and then fall asleep. Now, if I put her down awake she's likely to throw her pacifier out, get all wound up running laps around the crib, and then cry for the paci. We're working on it. And not looking for advice about leaving her to cry.

In all, regardless of what I say about her when I've finally gotten her to sleep, she's a pretty amazing kid and a lot of fun. We're very lucky.

Comments

[norah.livejournal.com]

Oh, so much to look forward to! Thank you for these updates. And the pictures are great - I can see you in her.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

She really is amazing. It's wonderful to watch her grow.

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

I know I have said before how fascinated I am by these updates, but I'm pretty sure I haven't said I'm grateful for them. Thank you for taking the time to write them and being generous enough to share them with us.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

I hear some of her utterances a little differently -- for example, I interpret it as "Alex hold the medicine", and she's just being somewhat indistinct about pronouncing "the", which may have something to do with the accents of those she spends most of her time talking to. Between my accent, your accent, and Meaghan's, she's sometimes getting some inconsistent pronunciations.

She's also got some other favorite phrases that you left out -- there's "Walkie hands!" when she wants to hold your hand while walking (with the alternate "Walkie two hands!" if she wants to hold hands with two people); "That sound??" when she hears a noise that she can't immediately identify; "Big kids!" when she hears schoolkids outside. "Fire trucks" are a current obsession, too, and since we're just a couple of blocks from a good-sized hospital, we hear lots of sirens.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Oh, golly, I want to say "enjoy the clinginess while you can!" But I've been revisiting photos of the Marine recruit and youngest when he was Alex's age, so pay no attention to Sniffly Mom over here :).

I am *so* enjoying your writing about Alex. Thank you for it.

[saoba.livejournal.com]

Eeeeeek! So cute!

Sleep is weird for a lot of kids this age. Sometimes it seems like they're just becoming aware of time passing and worry about missing anything, sometimes it's that (as you know, Bob)completely age appropriate clinginess.

Contrary to the fears of mothers of toddlers down the ages, it isn't possible for them to stay awake until they leave for college. Eventually they do sleep. And the clinginess goes away too. Sometimes slowly, but my oldest daughter just turned it off like a switch one day. One morning it was 'Mama, Mamma, where you?' every three minutes and the next day it was 'Me busy. You go bye.' when I suggested a walk to the store. It gave me quite a pang. (I got over it.)

[janetmk.livejournal.com]

Thank you for writing about Alex--I so much enjoy reading your updates on her development.

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

Your description of homeopathic meat quantities made me laugh out loud.

Excellent update as usual. I really hope to meet her someday!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

What worked for Z when he was that age and doing that exact same thing about bedtime was we had a fixed bedtime routine, including a story and a song when he was in the cot. One story, one song, which had to be lying down still, one goodnight -- well, maybe more than one -- and the sleepiness seen on the stairs would often come back.

This became our bedtime ritual for the next -- yeef, until we moved to Canada. The stories did get more sophisticated!

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

I love reading these. She's gotten so big!

I have to defend my countrymen though:

(It's probably a good thing that we don't live in New York. Marylanders take it well.)

We New Yorkers are very happy to say hello and good bye to children. The only reason why people think we're unfriendly is because we have a lot of habits that are about granting privacy in public spaces, which is necessary in a city this crowded. When your body is fully pressed against 6 different people in a crowded train, the last thing you want to do - or want have done - is even *more* an invasion of privacy. To that end we foster a sense of privacy by not engaging.

However, if you need directions, New Yorkers are very likely to talk your ear off about how to get somewhere and encourage you to try the coffee shop next to the place you are going to and have you had the pickles' on 50th street yet?

We're quite warm and friendly. But you have to ask for the help, because otherwise we will give you the privacy to look at your map, or what have you.

N.

[windsea.livejournal.com]

It's a lovely age, and I'm glad you're enjoying it!

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

What an amazing post. Thank you for sharing this with us.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I don't think that New Yorkers are unfriendly! I just understand that the culture about passing people on the street is different. Here it's quite common for two strangers passing on the street to make eye contact and nod, or say good morning. (Not in a huge crowd, obviously, where there's a constant stream of people.) In New York, as you say, it's considered more polite to not engage.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I left out "That sound?", given that it's a question I answer at least ten times a day. She really is very oriented to sound. I've noticed that even when she's deep in kitchen sink play, she'll keep up a running commentary on what she hears outside. "Pouring, pouring... people! Alex mix a eggs... doggy barking."

I'm sure she does mean "the," but it sounds like "a," or maybe "uh," to me. I don't think she can make a hard "th" sound at all. "That sound" is more like "Dat sound," for example.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

She doesn't use any form of "be?" You might just be a Klingon if...

Ah. Enjoyed reading and seeing, as always.

[Maurice Chevalier]
Sank Evans, for lee'-el garrels...
[/Maurice Chevalier]

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh, these posts feel self-indulgent to me. It makes me very happy that other people like them, but I'll admit that I don't really understand why.

Um. I mean, "You're welcome."

[minnaleigh.livejournal.com]

She looks so big in those pictures! A real little girl instead of a toddler! The update was fun to read, as always. And I'm so glad to hear that she's eating!

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

That last picture is just great!

-J

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

Your attention to detail is both vivid and educational. I feel like I'm learning how a person grows. Most writing about raising children has some details like the ones you relate, but yours fills in so much of the in-between detail, with so many examples.... I wish I knew those things about myself. I think Alex will be grateful to be able to read them.

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

That running commentary is amazing. It's the sound of learning, verbal reinforcement, information paths deepening.

[redbird]

It also depends on where you are in New York: people in my neighborhood park are a lot more likely to smile, nod, or say hello as I pass them than people in Washington Square Park (Greenwich Village). I'm guessing that this is because you don't get so many tourists up here, so most of the people I see in the park one day are likely to pass me again the next day, week, or month: there's a subliminal familiarity.

[redbird]

This is cool to read about; I'm pleased and a bit impressed that you have the time and energy to describe it all as well as doing it.

[tchemgrrl.livejournal.com]

Well, what I find valuable about it is that my husband and I have just recently started talking about the details of having a family--it's still pretty theoretical since I'm in grad school right now, but I still find myself thinking about it a lot. Seeing the development of a kid in a family that would be similar to ours helps me think through some of the details.

Plus, she sounds lovely. And people talking about what they love is almost always interesting.

[geekchick]

I enjoy reading them not just because Alex is adorable (that third picture, eee!), but also because I've never really been around small children for extended periods of time where I'd get to see that sort of thing (all my nieces and nephews live outside Memphis, and I don't see them all that often) and it's fascinating to "watch" how Alex is growing and learning.

[iamjw.livejournal.com]

I realize you already know this, but that is one very cute child.

I,like others, really appreciate these updates of yours. Watching her grow up is fascinating - even from a distance and with her being a child I've never met.

[threeringedmoon.livejournal.com]

Another quick comment about how much I love your updates. Alex is growing so quickly.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

A particularly charming aspect of the running sound commentary is that Alex doesn't have a very good sense of what sounds are likely in a given environment. She knows about jungle animal sounds, but not that they wouldn't be heard on a Baltimore street. So we have lots of exchanges like:

Alex: 'Ooh, Ah!' Monkey sound.
Me: Hmmm... (listening) no, that's 'Caw, caw.' It's a crow.

[sciamanna.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

The hide-and-seek play is delightful. Really gives you a glimpse of a different way of seeing.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

That last picture looks like she should be on stage!

Alex

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this update. I enjoyed reading it.

B

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Not self-indulgent. Fascinating.

Your scientific background, observational skills and understanding of psychology makes a lot of sense out of her. If you had the time, you could turn these posts into a very publishable book. I'd certainly want to read it.

The posts make me "get" on some level why people have the urge to be parents, although I still don't get it for myself.

[ailbhe]

Catching up after my trip, but this is gorgeous and the dancing in the other video was incredibly sophisticated to my eyes. I'd love my kids to know Alex.