Sixteen Months

In addition to being Juneteenth, today is also Mia's sixteen month birthday. Not a particularly significant one in the typical toddler's life, but there are a few changes we'd like to commit to memory before they've passed.

The biggest change, and I suppose this will continue to be the case for a long while, is the growth in Mia's language skills. Every day she learns new words. Her memory is working overtime to keep up with the growth, I'm certain. If you mention that something is purple she will find something else purple and say "purple." She knows blue, yellow, purple and orange as of today, and I'm sure if we post again tomorrow she'll know another.

She's getting quite good with names. Christina, our babysitter, is "Na;" another mom in our coop group gets a fully drawn out "Lau-ra." Last week we had our friend Amy over and Mia called her "Mamy" all night. Today, actually, we went to another friend's house, and Mia called her Mamy, so maybe she thinks that Mom's friends are all called Mamy?

Body parts are a blast for Mia. Her newest acquisition is elbow, which she pronounces quite well. Second favorite is knee, followed by feet and toes and then of course, shoes. She knows nose and eyes, but these aren't as much fun to say. She can identify other parts if you ask her to point to them, but she doesn't have the words to say them yet.

She has also perfected the animal sounds. She knows the sounds for horse, sheep, cow, owl, dog, cat, chicken and rooster. She will run through the whole litany if you ask her nicely.

She knows a lot of food words. Bean, cheese, berry, toast, cracker, pea. One of the characters in a favorite book is eating an ice cream cone, which she calls something along the lines of "gy-gee." She can identify the cone, that's for sure. This same character also eats cake and cookies. Mia definitely knows the word for cake, but that's not surprising giving my own proclivities for baked goods.

There is so much more to say about Mia, but I can hear her stirring in her room after a 2.5 hour nap. She'll greet me with "mama" and "up" and if I'm lucky I'll get a big hug.