At 21 months old, Ella is incredibly smart, and apparently exponentially verbal. We have counted about 300 words she knows, and she’s adding more every day. She’s making longer sentences too: the best so far, was when drawing with Autumn (one of her favorite things to do), and Autumn gave her the brown marker. Ella said, “No! Mama draw with the brown.”
She’s starting to learn her abc’s and 123’s too. She loves the Dr. Seuss ABCs books, and other alphabet books she has. As we go through the books, she can point out letters that she knows, and she is starting to recognize letters in lots of other things too; signs, boxes, other books, and alphabet soup and cookies. She’ll also count anything you ask her to, but she’s not yet accurate beyond 2 or 3 things. Sometimes, she’ll count to 18: “one, two, three, two, eighteen”.
She’s doing everything better, and more of it. She’s running, playing with her “Annas” (little dolls), hide and seek, playing with wood block houses that we build for her.
Ella also has jobs around the house: feeding the dog every day (including treats for Greta and Otto the cat), helping move diapers into the dryer, and sometimes cleaning her high chair tray after meals. She’s also good (sometimes) about helping clean up after play, putting blocks away and stacking toys.
She’s also been watching a little bit of television, now that Autumn has been spending part of the morning waiting out morning sickness. She only gets to watch Sesame Street and pbs nature specials, but she already knows most of the characters on Sesame Street. Her favorite is Elmo, followed closely by Ernie and Big Bird.
She’s been getting very interested in particular about her clothes too. She’s often very picky about what she wears, telling what color her t-shirt should be, and whether she wants pants or a dress. She’ll get so attached to some clothes that she’ll refuse to change into pajamas at night, or refuse to cover up a favorite t-shirt with a coat or sweater.
Tonight, we went to eat at Joe’s Crab Shack after Ella was saying “Eat crab” most of the afternoon, saying that she was a baby turtle. She’s been very interested in turtles lately, watching nature shows and videos about turtles. Sea turtles are a favorite, and during one video that she’d seen a couple times, she started saying “crab! crab! crab! crab!”, to warn the baby turtles about the crab that would grab them as they went across the sand to the ocean. She also knows that older turtles eat crabs, that’s how she got started saying “eat crab” today.
At night, she’s been sleeping in the crib very well, just one or two visits a night. When we’re getting ready for a nap or bedtime, she’ll ask for Mama Time or (less often) Papa Time to check in before she has to go to sleep. Papa usually puts her to bed at night, so Mama Time is her chance for some cuddling and a good night kiss, then she’s ready for sleep.
