We just posted our twenty-three month photos. This month we seem to have fallen behind in writing about things as they happen so there seems to be a lot to catch up on.
Here’s a quick picture from one year ago:
We were in Massachusetts for Sean and Peggy’s wedding and we were visiting Anne, Terry, and Jack. The girls were playing with Jack’s toys.
This month, Eleanor has learned to love the word “no”. She uses it in several ways. When she’s upset, the answer to every question is a very short “no”.
“Do you want some milk?”
“No.”
“Do you want to eat?”
“No.”
She draws out her “no” a little more when she really means it though. When she’s playing, she’ll sometimes use a singsong “no-no-no-no-no-no” to say that she doesn’t want something.
Eleanor has been stringing out longer sets of words and syllables. Sometimes she ends up with sentences that make sense. Often it sounds like “Mommy jegebevede there!” It’s almost like she’s stumbling over the words in the middle.
While Eleanor is still mostly interested in using language to name things, Miranda tries to convey what she wants. Sometimes we can understand her, sometimes not. One we still haven’t decoded sounds like “dju?”. She hasn’t figured out how to come up with multiple words that mean the same thing when we don’t understand her. She’ll say the same thing over and over and when we don’t understand, she gets frustrated.
Miranda has been doing a lot more naming of what belongs to whom. She’ll say “daddy shoes” or “mommy pants”. Apparently, all khaki pants are “mommy pants”. She also likes naming big and small items as “daddy turtle” and “baby turtle”. Sometimes it’s “mommy” instead, and we haven’t figured out how she assigns gender to these things.
Miranda knows what hot and cold food is now, and she knows to be more cautious when we give her something that is hot. She’ll also say when something is wet (like her shirt after a failed attempt to drink from an open cup).
Both Eleanor and Miranda know how to recognize an E or an M on something to identify it as theirs. They’ll pick out the E in Eleanor or M in Miranda in their otherwise identical juice cups. When Eleanor wants her cup but she currently only sees Miranda’s, she’ll say “E– Eleanor”.
Eleanor has been eating a little better this month. She seems to understand that we want her to eat certain things, which she’ll do reluctantly. If she’s being sufficiently entertained, she’s more willing to eat what’s in front of her. It takes quite a bit of energy to get her to eat dinner still.
Bath time has become harder with Eleanor. She wants only me to give her a bath, and she seems scared of getting her hair rinsed. It’s only through a combination of being assertive with her (to get her into the bath) and soothing (when rinsing) that we get through a bath without an upset Eleanor. Agnes does still give her baths, but she’s definitely more uneasy about it.
We’ve had two diaper incidents with Eleanor this month. The first was due to Eleanor not wanting Agnes to give her a bath, even though she was already naked. I came home from work to find Eleanor completely naked in the living room while Agnes gave Miranda a bath first. Unfortunately, she really needed her diaper during that time. About a week later, Eleanor had another incident where she took off her pants and her diaper during her naptime and proceeded to poop in bed. That took some cleaning.
Miranda’s been more opinionated about her clothes. She likes certain shirts, pants, and socks, and if you’ll let her, she’ll pick out what she wants to wear for the day. This rarely matches–she likes to wear one red and one green sock. She likes a lot of colors and patterns. Sometimes we let her get her way. Sometimes we make her choose from reasonable options. Sometimes she just wears what we want her to wear.
That’s it for this month. In another month, the girls will turn two. We’ve updated their wishlist with some ideas we have for their birthday.