scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

2.2.09

sixteen months

You can walk and run and with the little blue frog-shaped stepstool you can climb on the couch by yourself. When you are feeling silly or tired or when you want to show off, now, when you want to play and want attention, sometimes you still crawl: but i think it is when you are pretending something. You can walk backwards and pick up your doll stroller and kick things and drink from a cup if you are not tired. You know that you can reach things that are slightly higher up if you stand on your very tippy tip toes.

Because there are things you are grasping, now, concepts, like pretending. You pretend to feed your dolls, to give them water, you say they are sleeping, you want us to read to them. You know how telephones work and are starting to talk into to them instead of just listening. You ask if you can watch the crocodile video if Daddy is playing on the computer. Because "crocodile" is a word that you can say (though you pronounce it "crockedy" i think we all know what you mean). Crocodile, and duck, and lion, and banana, you ask for bananas. When you are hungry you grab my hand and lead me into the kitchen. When you are tired you lead me to the futon in your room and crawl onto it and ask for milk. When i say that you need a new diaper and then there will be milk and then afterwards bed you do not protest. Sometimes you pull the dog's tail or hit her or shout and then you look at me very seriously and shake your head and then you pet her very nicely, because i am looking at you very sternly back and you know you're not supposed to smack the dog. (The dog is very, very patient.) You pet pictures like we've taught you to pet the dog, actually, soft and gentle and slow, and you kiss the pictures of animals in your books. Babies too. You are well aware of what "hot" is and will gamely blow on Mama's coffee because maybe then i will give you a sip. (Ha! Not likely.)

You know all kinds of words: you know your nose, and chin, and eyes, and mouth, and ears, and toes and feet and belly. And while you can't say all your body parts, you can make lots of animal noises - the lion goes RAR and the duck goes QUACK and the cow goes MOO (you moo at the cow on the milk carton, and it doesn't mean you want milk, it means that there is a cow, there) and the tiger also goes RAR and the dogs go WUFF WUFF and a horse says NEIGH and cats (und katzen) say MEOW and the donkeys go EE-AH and elephants go BROOO with big arms extending, and monkeys go EE EE OOO OOO and ostriches hide their heads. When you say RAR it is really cute and might be M's favorite. You are starting to have sentences - of made-up words, sure, because while "baba" is "baby" we can't figure out what "baba dee" is. Though i think "mama nee" is mama nurse, or mama cuddle me, or mama pay attention and pick me up. Sometimes of course "mama nee" is also "you're not doing what i want, so i am about to have a tantrum," in shorthand.

A tantrum is when you lie down on the floor - you have to lie down, so sometimes when we're getting in the stroller and you don't want to you try to kind of melt and go all stiff simultaneously, it's hard to describe, and you yell and yell and yell and we try and act like you're a rational human being and say things like, Mama is going in the kitchen, or, If you bring me the kleine katze book i can read to you, and sometimes you'll bring the kleine katze book and sometimes you keep yelling.

You do usually follow directions if you're not tantrummy, and if the direction is not "come here so we can put on your coat." You like to run away. But you can get the flamingo and give it to Daddy for a hug or be soft and gentle with the dog or sit down and get ready to draw.

We are still pretty successful at keeping to the reccommendations for no television (et c.) for kids under two. While you like the Schnappi crocodile on YouTube you are also made happy, if you're asking for Crockedy, by the little wooden crocodile puzzle piece, or by the round green pillow with a crocodile appliqueed on it. You don't know who Elmo or Dora or Tinky Winky or Cinderella is. You do know who the dog is and the grandparents and our various friends, at the baby group and at the tagesmutter's, and i think you know some of M's colleagues as well.

You like to play with Legos - usually taking things apart, but sometimes building things as well. You have so many books and you like to read them (sometimes alone and sometimes not, but you nearly always want to turn the pages yourself) and sometimes you make the noises (the firetruck says TATU, TATA in German) but there are a couple of popup books, and pull-the-tab books, and those, while you like them, you destroy them very quickly. You like to play with your shape sorter and with your xylophone and you were just given a little hammer-peg turtle that yesterday you were carrying all over the apartment, so i think it is setting up to be a favorite. You like to draw (you like markers better than crayons, i think because the colors are brighter) and when you want to, you point at the Art you already made that we hung on the wall. And then if i don't get it you point at the cabinet we keep your markers in. You know that crocodiles are green (the green markers are also Crockedy) and the yellow marker is like a banana. You like to draw with ballpoint pens best of all, but we try and avoid that most of the time. Usually you draw with your right hand, but not always.

You want to do everything yourself, drink from a cup without my hand, feed yourself, put on your own shoes. Do up zippers and snaps and put things away - you want to run the laundry machine and the dishwasher. But you aren't really able to do everything you want to do, yet, like playing with knives when i'm putting away dishes, or like putting on your hat unassisted, some things you are not able and some you are not allowed: and then you have tantrums. We have definitely entered the tantrum having phase. You get so frustrated, so fast, and it's worse if you're the least bit hungry or tired, and then if i try to help you put the triangle through the triangle hole in the shape sorter instead of the square hole like you wanted, or whatever, it's not ever good enough, you've given up, and all that they say about ignoring tantrums is hard to put into practise. We're doing it, but it is hard to put into practise.

Sometimes you want to play by yourself, and sometimes you want me to play with you: to read the same book ten times in a row, to build something with Lego so you can take it apart, to cuddle the purple dolly because she's sleepy. You get so angry when your dolls are sleepy and you can't get them to lie down properly in the doll stroller - it doesn't have a recline, at all, i'm not sure there are doll strollers that recline, but your dolls are very sleepy a lot. You are fascinated by bigger kids, just a little bigger or a whole lot bigger, two year olds or teenagers, and you have a little tricycle just like a big kid and you love it even though it's kind of too tippy for you to ride alone (i think we are going to get you a less tippy tricycle). You like to dance and you like hide and seek (we were playing hide and seek in the museum the other day) and you like to feel like a grownup, i think, you are getting much better at brushing your teeth and using a fork and wanting to wash your hands when they are sticky.

I took you in a real art museum over the weekend - we had visitors and they wanted to go see the crazy architect person and so we went to the Kunsthauswien, by Hundertwasser, and i think it is about as toddler friendly as a real art museum can be. Very colorful, with big pieces of art hanging and bright tiles in the floor and nice friendly plants and water fountains everywhere and windows, and the docents are very cheerful and like to chat. It's like going to restaurants, or that's the theory: if we don't ever take you to a museum, you won't ever know how to behave when you're in one. Namely, being quiet and looking at the colorful things on the wall. And we take you to restaurants now, because we can teach you now to not bug the other patrons and to not scream and yell and disturb them - though quite often the other patrons are perfectly happy to be your new friends, and we don't make you sit still except when there is actually food on the table, we can get you to be quiet at least. Now, in restaurants, we order food and you walk around and look at whatever there is to look at, and when the food comes we all have to sit still and eat until we are done, including waiting for a parent to be finished eating to walk with you. And then when we are all done eating we can get up and walk again, and maybe we are just lucky that you haven't had a proper tantrum in a restaurant yet. But we're doing okay so far.

Labels: milestones, toddler

scrawled @ 12:04