18 Months

Today Violet is 18 months old; as the year turns the corner and the days start to get shorter, she has turned a corner and is closer to being a 2-year-old than to her first birthday.

She has started using spoons and forks all by herself, with truly surprising dexterity. I'm not likely to give her a bowl of soup anytime soon, but really, she is amazingly good at stabbing morsels and conveying them into her mouth. She can even get more yogurt into her mouth than on to her shirt, armed with her spoon and her self-assurance. She likes melon and blueberries and bread and cheese, but can sometime be hoodwinked into eating less desirable food with the offer of a fork. Forks! They are super fun!

Our fun new game in recent weeks is identifying body parts. "Where is your nose? Where are your toes? Where is your tongue?" It sometimes shocks me how much language she understands. It is so fun to realize that she knows more than I think she does (who taught her what her feet were called? me?) and it is so SO fun to see her delighted and proud of herself for knowing the answers. Complacently self-satisfied babies are so adorable.

And as far as speaking, she is at a stage right now where she seems to be adding a new word nearly every day. It boggles the mind to contemplate the rate at which she is learning new things and new concepts and new words. And oh, the adorable baby talk-- her funny mispronunciations of diaper and nurse and spoon and cheese that probably no one but us would understand. Her versions of water and hello and night-night are intelligible to pretty much everyone, I think, and there is no mistaking her beaming, triumphant "TA-DAH!" at accomplishing some feat.

I feel just the same, sweet brown-eyed girl.