{"id":585,"date":"2008-02-17T22:28:42","date_gmt":"2008-02-18T03:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/wordpress\/?p=585"},"modified":"2024-01-28T20:55:29","modified_gmt":"2024-01-28T19:55:29","slug":"sixteen-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/2008\/02\/17\/sixteen-months\/","title":{"rendered":"Sixteen months"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nA month ago I was hard pressed to find much to say about Ingrid’s 15th month<\/a>. It seemed that not much had changed: most of what I said was “this continues” and “more of that”. This month feels very different. I guess there’s some truth in what “they” say about children developing in spurts. (And it’s probably this spurt of advancement that has caused the uncharacteristic whinging<\/a>.)\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nWhere to start? Language, perhaps, because that’s where I’ve seen the greatest change. I think Ingrid has gotten over the big threshold and really understood the concept of words. She knows that certain sounds don’t just belong with certain things, but the sounds mean<\/b> things. And she tries to make those sounds herself, too, although she’s naturally much better at understanding than at talking.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhereas last month she had a handful of signs and even fewer words, I know for sure that she now understands dozens. She knows daddy. She knows hat, mittens, trousers, and boots; book, ball, lamp, pushchair, gate, train and car; dog and bird and duck. She knows eat, fruit, sit, stand, sleep, nappies and potty. And thanks to her books she knows cat and cow and sheep and cock and duck, and some of their sounds as well.\n<\/p>\n

\nPronouncing words is a lot harder. She can reliably produce half a dozen consonants (P, T, B, H and J – that’s the Estonian J by the way – plus occasionally M) and two vowels (A and I). Most words get reduced to these few sounds, so most words sound almost the same, except for small variations in tone. Daddy, lamp, and boot (pappa<\/i>, lamp<\/i>, saabas<\/i>) all sound roughly like bapa<\/i>. The intended meaning is only apparent from the context. The first clear word was ball (pall<\/i>, which she pronounces as paj<\/i>), but she can also say “thank you” very clearly (aitäh<\/i>, which also means “give this to me please” and “take this please”) as well as boob (tiss<\/i>, pronounced initially as tihh<\/i> but now more and more as tii<\/i>, or rather tii, tii, tiiii, TIIII!<\/i>).\n<\/p>\n

\nShe also knows that cows say muu<\/i> and sheep say baa<\/i> and owls say uhhuu<\/i> and cocks say kikerikii<\/i> and is really fond of those animals’ pages in her books. For a while kikerikii<\/i> was her favourite word, and she kept opening Muu, säger kon<\/a> at the cock’s page while saying titetii<\/i> with great enthusiasm.\n<\/p>\n

\nNow that she has understood how language works she has also become better (or maybe just more insistent) at non-verbal communication. She points, or pulls my hand, or spurs me with her heels when I’m carrying her but not moving in the right direction. But at the same time she now has higher expectations. She expects to be understood, and is most upset when we don’t get it, which is still a very common occurrence.\n<\/p>\n

\nBooks remain popular, especially books that have pictures of things that she can recognise and point out. Our living room table is covered with children’s books. We’ve also started going to the local library now. The books are all in English but she doesn’t know that – all she cares is that they have pictures of familiar things. Picture books with a story are more hit and miss. She’s ignored some of them completely, but enjoyed others after a week or two of gradually increasing interest. The Gruffalo<\/a> was boring at first but then she learned to recognise the fox, the owl and the snake, and then we’d read only the pages with those animals. The gruffalo itself was not interesting at all.\n<\/p>\n

\nIngrid is her usual active self and gets bored after just a few hours at home. We may get up at 7 and by 9 she can already be standing at the pushchair, trying to climb up and making very insistent noises at us. It used to be that we went out in the afternoon only, now we normally go out twice a day. I try to spread out my errands so I have reason to go out every day – or we just go to a playground or indoor play area somewhere. Anything to get out. And she generally prefers the pushchair to any kind of sling, because she can see more and move more freely. That lasts until she is tired; she usually prefers the sling for sleeping.\n<\/p>\n

\nPlaygrounds and parks are more fun now that she’s a more confident walker. She likes climbing, but unfortunately few playgrounds have climbing frames for children of her size. They tend to be geared towards much older children. We’ve found one in Stepney Green that’s just right for her: challenging, but small enough that she can manage some parts all on her own. In the absence of climbing frames, staircases are good fun, as well as simple grass slopes and pavement edges: anything that’s a bit tricky to walk. She especially likes to walk and jump down from things – walking down stairs, for example. And the best part of our weekly swimming sessions is sitting on the edge and jumping in. Sometimes we spend almost the whole half-our session jumping from the edge over and over again.\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nFor some strange reason she also thinks it is very funny to sit on things (big bags or pillows, for example). She also enjoys unpacking bags again, but with a twist. This isn’t the old “tear everything out” game. No, now she takes everything out from the grocery bags after we get home from the supermarket, one thing at a time, and carefully hands them to me.\n<\/p>\n

\nClothes are interesting, especially hats and mittens and boots. She likes taking off her mittens and put them back on while we’re out. She points at her head when we’re about to go out and she hasn’t got her hat on yet (or when I haven’t put mine on). She carries her own boots around, talks about them, lifts up my large boots and puts them on the bench, carries Eric’s shoes around, tries to put boots on and take them off.\n<\/p>\n

\nTeeth are still eight only (I think – I don’t get many chances to inspect her mouth for molars). Potty use is unchanged; one session in the morning just after we get up, but then almost nothing during the day because she won’t sit still. Eating habits generally unchanged: variable, but with a great emphasis on fruit, bread, cheese and breast milk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A month ago I was hard pressed to find much to say about Ingrid’s 15th month. It seemed that not much had changed: most of what I said was “this continues” and “more of that”. This month feels very different. I guess there’s some truth in what “they” say about children developing in spurts. (And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ingrid_johanna","category-monthly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18412,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions\/18412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}