To my dearest Asherito,
As you turned 20 months old last November 2, I could say that I'm little by little convinced that you're no longer a baby. Just 4 months to go and you'll soon turn 2. But as early as now, it seems that we do not only get a preview but I believe you're already nearing the peak of your Terrible 2 Stage.
As always, here's the list of what I noted about you on your 20th month:
1. More often, you only just nap once a day now. You usually skip your morning nap but your eyes get heavy come lunch time so I see to it that you've eaten your lunch by 11:30 PM. However, napping early in the afternoon makes you hit the hay as early as 7 PM! It's actually tough adjusting but I think I've mastered your system and body clock pretty well.
2. You love to run! You can perfectly balance yourself as you can also jump by yourself with two feet off the ground without holding onto nothing. You can also tip your toes for a few seconds.
3. You gained a kilo as of your last well check up last month. You looked a little taller too with the dining table as my gauge. According to your doctor, you're almost through with your immunizations and what's just left are the booster shots for your toddler years. You also graduated now from a monthly routine well baby checkup as your next checkup won't be until first week of December..so perhaps, you'll have it just every other month now.
4. You can already eat by yourself using your Barney spoon and fork. However, you tend to experiment and play with your food that's why your high chair tray ends up a one big mess afterwards. You can also tell Mommy that you're already hungry or thirsty and that you want something to take in. You love pasta..specifically Jollibee spaghetti and Mommy's carbonara. You also love to drink your yakult and pineapple juice using a straw. Mommy fears of typhoid, amoebiasis and tummy flu so just to be sure I still give you distilled water to drink. Hopefully I can give you the purified one that we drink or those treated with
water softeners by the time you turn 2.
5. You love driving your mini-car around powered by your feet...hehe!
6. You ask me to play the Barney DVD whenever you hear me sing even just a line from any of Barney's song.
7. Your favorite nursery rhymes that you can perfectly dance or do the hand actions with are My Toes My Knees, Hello Helle (Kumusta ka), the Butterfly song.
8. You can correctly point 15 body parts: head, hair, eyes, ears, nose, lips, tongue, teeth, armpit, tummy, toes, hands, butt, knees and "birdie".
9. You can express whether you want bottled milk or Mommy's milk.
10. Favorite word now is "mama"..to my delight, of course! Your vocabulary is still a bit limited but you can understand a lot more words than you can say. Further, you can express yourself through signing or body and hand gestures.
11. You feel extra possessive of Mommy. Your separation anxiety, I think, even worsen.
12. You've become more demanding too of Mommy's milk so I don't think that weaning will be an easy process for us to go through by the time you turn 2.
13. Mommy's challenge now is how to curtail or manage your hitting and biting habits. I know that it's just normal and it's something that toddlers undergo through since you can't fully express for now your thoughts and emotions through words.
14. Mommy's amused of your patriotism. You can recognize the Philippine flag and say "Ba-ba"..which is your term for "Bayang Magiliw.." while you tap your chest with your hands.
See how you've grown now, my son. You really never cease to amaze us with how you're growing smarter as day pass. Mommy and Daddy will never get tired being amused with your antics so just keep 'em coming, my baby.
Xoxo,
Mommy