Happy 17th Month

Yipee, I recently turned 17 months old (Tuesday). Needless to say, I am getting very active, cheeky, and mischievous. I am more sociable and friendly. I like to entertain people with my funny antics but at the same time, enjoy testing the limits and patience of my parents. I think I am already a big girl so I want my independence in everything I do: eating, cutting up my food, climbing up the stairs, taking a bath with Mommy's facial wash, and even climbing into the stroller and car seat to buckle myself up. And yes, I do not want any assistance.

My gross motor skills are also getting fine tuned...I enjoy walking backwards (and into things since I have no eyes on my back), twirling around in circles, jumping, running and climbing up big chairs and my rocking horse (with wheels; I am a little daredevil too). As for fine motor skills, I love putting different shapes into my shape sorter and I feel encouraged to do more when I get them right. I like stacking blocks too and mommy gets really amused whenever she sees me stacking blocks on my ball. Another skill I have is arranging and aligning things (from shoes, colored blocks to pebbles) :)

My cognitive development is also on track. Mommy has been counting the words that I can say. She is very happy and impressed because for this particular month, I have added not 5 or 10, but over 20 new words to my existing word list. She did a tally and ta da, I can now verbalise at least 80 English words. I got to thank my daddy and mommy for speaking so much to me since I was an infant and more importantly, they did not speak to me in baby language but in proper sentences. As a result, I can understand up to 3-step commands, nod and shake my head accordingly and finally, started my first steps speaking in sentences (e.g. cold water, come daddy, what's that, see it there, are you). My new words are:

• out (out)
• book (book)
  
• brush (brus)
• bib
  
• stack (stax)
  
• hug (hug)
  
• door (oor)
  
• house (house)
  
• swing (ting)
  
• feet (peet)
• arm (arm)
  
• head (hed)
  
• hair (air)
  
• nose (ose)
  
• eye (eye)
  
• ear (ear)
  
• bellybutton (beh beh)
• drop (rop)
• muck
  
• catch (cach)
• zoo (zoo)
• bus (bas)
  
• moon (moon)
• press (bes)
• cold (cold)
  
• hot (hot)
  
• egg (egg)
  
• apple (ple)
• bread (brea)
  
• banana (ba)
• mango (mang)
• yogurt (gurt)
  
• cockroach (cock)
• flower (powber)
• socks (sox)
• box (box)
  
• take (take)
• marble (marble)
• twinkle (kle)
• ouch
• blue (blue)
• spoon (poon)
• buckle (buck)
• stop (lop)

My word recognition skills are also getting better. I can now recognize and read more words than before. Mommy also realized that my print awareness has gotten better because when I see words, I attempt to read by the sound of the letter that I see in the words (e.g. arm for aircon, ca for cabinet). This goes the same for numbers. When I see numbers, I start saying things that sounded like numbers (though they might not be accurate; e.g. oh, oo, ee, orh, ive). I can also identify a few numbers when I see them; 2,4,5,7,8,10.

That's it for now. There are so much for me to learn and do stay tune for more updates.