Dear Michela,
I love that your language is blossoming. You surprise me everyday with something new. For instance, today you pushed a basket of clean laundry to the family room. The basket got caught on the rug so you stopped and said, "help you!" I wasn't looking and said, "yes, thank you for helping me." You then repeated "help you" but with a much more urgent tone. I turned to see that the basket was pushing up the rug. You needed my help. I think it's cute that you said help
you because we are always saying things like, "Do you want me to help you? This is for you. You are helping!" So to you,
you is the correct pronoun. I know you will figure out your pronouns in due time. For now, I'm enjoying your ever expanding vocabulary.
You are now trying to count everything. When you count you say, "1 - 2 - 1 - 2". I know you can say your numbers through 10 but you are stuck on numbers 1 and 2 when you count. I'm not sure if I confused you with counting backwards when it's time to stop nursing. You are really good at helping me count backwards by saying the next number. I don't know if I should stop counting backwards until you master counting from 1 to 10. I'm guessing, like pronouns, you will figure out the proper counting order.
You can also say your ABCs to the letter G. After the letter G you skip over to O. You have an alphabet rug in your room. Each square has a letter and you are really good at locating the appropriate letter for certain words. For instance, you know to stand on the letter D when I say "Daddy". We sing a song with the letter sounds and you stand on each letter as I sing the song. Your favorite letter squares are C, D, M, R, and V. To you, those letter stand for Caitlin, Daddy, Michela, Uncle Rob, and Vacuum. I'm not sure why you like vacuum but you will point it out randomly while playing in your room.
Another language development are verbs. You are constantly telling me what you're doing. "Eating", "dancing", "singing", "walking", "running", "drinking", "sleeping", "napping", and many more. You overgeneralized adding "-ing" to words and will also say things like, "Daddy is homing" instead of, "Daddy is coming home." The other day you looked at a picture of a man talking on his phone. You said, "phoning". Last but not least, you looked at Penelope while she was breastfeeding and said, "Baby milking". Technically milking is a verb and technically Penelope was milking me, however; we typically don't say that a breastfeeding baby is milking her mommy. Way to make me feel like a cow!
You are also showing independence by saying, "Keeka do it". I love that you are eager to do things on your own. You still ask us to play with you and help you do things but once you know what to do, you want to do it on your own.
Last but not least, you have manners. You say, "excuse me", "please", "thank you", "welcome", and "bless you." While I'm thrilled you have manners I like that you don't always say please or thank you. Sometimes in life you need to assert yourself and you don't have a problem doing that.
My favorite new development is you say, "love you!" It melts my heart when I hear you say those two words. You have been saying "I love you" with the Quillinan sign but there is something extra special when you use your voice.
I love you Michela Grace!
With all my love,
Mommy
