As I noted a few months ago, I'm not as big into tracking the milestones as I once was. But for the sake of continuity, here's an update from LG's 15-month doctor's visit (performed much closer to the 16-month mark). Her height is a bit over 30 inches, right around the 50th percentile, which they had a tough time measuring because LG didn't want to lay still. Weighing in was easier, since she apparently didn't mind sitting naked on the scale. She clocked in at 22.8 lbs, enough for 35th percentile, up 10 points from her 12-month visit.
For me, though, more interesting than height or weight these these days is cognitive development. In an effort to provide the most accurate, least boastful accounting, I set forward the following challenge to Hollie on her most recent day home with LG. Keep track of all the full words that LG uses consistently without prompting. To meet my criteria for a full word, it had to be something that LG spoke clearly and completely, and used in the appropriate context without any encouragement from either Hollie or myself. I kept the list going until I finished this post, so we've tracked roughly over 36 hours.
What follows is the list of 25 words that LG has used repeatedly and properly in the last 36 hours.
Ball (first alphabetically, and probably the first word she ever used to specifically reference another object)
Blue (used to identify blue things, such as blueberries, a blue dish towel, and a bottle of blue water that she plays with from time to time)
bowl
boy
brush (she even knows there are different kinds of brushes. she knows that she uses a different brush for her teeth and hair.)
burp(while I'd love her to say excuse me, shouting BURP! after she's burped is at least an acknowledgement that she's done something.)
bye-bye
cheese
Daddy
duck (this is significant because every other animal she knows is identified by the sound it makes, not its name)
egg
hat
help
hi
Mama
me (this is a new development in the last day or so, and is her response when she sees her reflection in a mirror)
milk
more
no (what's hilarious is that she often puts "no" and "more" together, primarily when she wants you to sing "Five Little Monkeys", but also when she's done eating.)
please
poop (gross, yes. But also helpful.)
shoes (this was probably her second word after "ball"
teeth (saddest thing in the world is when her mouth hurts, and she looks up at you, points at her mouth, and mournfully says "teeth")
toes
up
This list does not include the partial words or sounds that Hollie and I recognize as referring to an object, but aren't entirely words... yet. An abbreviated list of those words looks something like this:
bana (banana)
ba (bottle)
boog (booger or boogie. We can thank her cousin Alissa [or 'Lis'] for that one.)
cook (cookie or cracker)
broc (broccoli, which she loves, for the moment)
has (house)
gu (girl)
peesh (peas)
There are many more words on the partial list, but we didn't do as good a job at tracking those. And when you add in the litany of animals sounds (baa, woof, meow, sssss, neigh, quack, tweet, gobble, honk, hoo, moo, ooh ooh, boo & Ho Ho Ho [shut up, ghosts and Santa count as animals]) she still makes on a regular basis, her communications skills are really impressive. At least, they're impressive to me. But I'm her dad, so I'm probably a little more easily impressed.
Also, she loves to shout "CONK!" when she's smacked her head, or when singing "Five Little Monkeys." If you have any suggestions on where to categorize that, I'm open to ideas.
 |
| This is a phone she got for Christmas. It will come in handy with all the talking she does now. |
