The toddler at 19 months

Another month has passed! Another month of toddler cuteness! Oh, we love spending time with her! We sometimes wish we can freeze the moments with her – staying in perpetual toddler-ness...
Some of the things Mieka are doing now:

Singing the first verse of Barney: “I love you” [I luv uh] again and again, especially when she sees her Barney doll or Barney book. The voice is adorable. We encourage her endlessly because it is so precious!

The vocabulary is increasing a bit more. She sometimes copies a word, but do not repeat it again. New words: bye (used in conjunction with tata), bou (build), Mama Kaka (Karen), ouch, woef (dog). I am racking my brains now, but that seems like that for now! She gets by with the finger and pulling us along to where she wants to go or want.

She loves making jokes with us, and laughs her head of when she has an effect. She will repeat a “joke” like frightening us, and we have to be frightened again and again.

The repetitiveness of things is a big thing. Everything gets repeated, and she goes about it in the same excited way as it is being done the first time. Stuff like taking shoes off, and trying to get it on again. When she fails, we have to put the shoes on again. Then all over again; shoes off, shoes on...

Tonight my teen saw a flickering light out of the corner of her eye. She caught the toddler switching the bedside lamp in her room on and off.

It is sometimes a struggle to get her out of repetitive mode. It becomes a problem especially if it involves us having to do something again and again... The whistle tantrum gets used very effectively!

She waves now in the morning when I leave her at day care. She also said “bye” one morning. Most of the times I have to put her in the arms of a teacher when I leave. When I try to put her with the other children who are playing with toys, she arches her back and pulls up her feet. But she is contented when left in somebody’s arms...

The day care stays a big headache, but I know that you get small irritating problems with anybody you leave your child with. They are not you! (Duh!) They haven’t appointed a new teacher, and gave the assistant the job instead. The assistant has been with them for 16 years, but she speaks English (we prefer Afrikaans now), and she does not have a qualification. I have sorted the bottle story with them, and it seems that she is now getting all her bottles. Only five more months, then she moves on to the next section... Is it worth to move her now? (The perpetual worries of a working mother...)

I love the toddler at this age!

Related posts:
Symptoms of toddlerhood: The whistle and not sleeping
The toddler is a year and a half
17 months - toddler update