What a fun age! Zoe continues to get bigger (34 lbs, 34 inches at last count) and become more and more like a little person. <\/p>\n
The most major changes we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen lately involve her communication skills; she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s constantly talking, and her sentences are getting longer and more complex. She recently learned to express what she wants (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I want a banana\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was her first such sentence), and she often \u00e2\u20ac\u201c without being asked \u00e2\u20ac\u201c describes items she sees around the house (e.g. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Daddy shirt\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). She has been saying \u00e2\u20ac\u0153please\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for a few months now, and we recently taught her to say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153thank you,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which she often says without being prompted. A few other word-related things:<\/p>\n
-When she wakes up in the morning, she usually calls out “Daddy\/mommy, where are you?” And the first thing she says when we pick her up is, “I want milk.”
\n-She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s often saying to us, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I want mon-kee\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I want ba-bee,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which means she wants to see her favorite Playhouse Disney characters on the TV or computer.
\n-Any time I sneeze she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bless you, Mommy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (This started a few weeks ago – after hearing us say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bless you\u00e2\u20ac\u009d after every one of her sneezes for the past 21+ months!)
\n-She constantly says “hi” and “bye” to things – she likes, for example, greeting the birds outside her window. (And when they’re not there, she usually says, “birdies, where are you?” or “birdies night-night.”) The other day as we were walking through the garage, she waved and said “bye, stroller” to the pink stroller sitting there.
\n-She said, “I love you, Mommy,” for one of the first times the other the day.<\/p>\n
Words aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the only things Zoe has been learning. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s beginning to get a grasp on numbers: a few weeks ago she said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153two doggies\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when looking at a picture, and now she routinely points out when there is two of something. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more skilled at puzzles and shape-related activities than before, and she is also gaining an understanding of colors. (Every time we ask her the color of something, she answers yellow, purple or, occasionally, green, which makes us chuckle. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good she gets the concep<\/em>t of color, and we know she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get them all right eventually.)<\/p>\n Like other kids her age, Zoe is very much into imitating people around her. She repeats many of the words she hears me and Q say, and she has also started following our actions. The other day, Q was standing with his arms crossed; Zoe saw him and promptly positioned her arms in the same way. And she often “folds” and then carries around her little towels – probably because she sees me doing laundry.<\/p>\n