Dear Fern (part XX)

Dear Fern,

I Can Figure It Out!

You turn twenty months old today. To celebrate, you called your mom on her way home from work and talked to her for ten solid minutes, mostly without repeating yourself. You sang her some songs, recited your ABCs and counted to ten; you told her "I love you" and mentioned that there was a ball and there was a bird. And, whenever your dad asked if he could have the phone back, you said simply "No," and chatted with your mom some more.

This month again has been all about language. You are starting to put words together in surprising ways, and you're always trotting out new vocabulary we never taught you: "mushroom," for example, came tonight, and "office" yesterday. We had started a list of the words you know, but we gave up quickly; it's just too hard to track. Your pronunciation is improving in leaps and bounds, too. Until this month, we were the only ones who could understand most of your words. Now, more often than not, Fern-language resembles English closely enough for strangers to understand.

You've started singing on your own without prompting -- "just for fun," it seems. You have some favorites: "Eensy Weensy Spider," naturally, and a chant from your music class, "Hey Ya Na." Once, you obligingly sang the theme from Love Boat to show off to your dad's stay-at-home dad friend. Like any campfire singer, though, you don't need to know many of the words before you're ready to hum along to almost anything.

Your First Best Friend

Your best friend Erwan started school this month, and although you suffered his absence well, you still ask for him several times a day. Once, thinking you saw him at the park, a giant smile spread across your face as you nodded and shouted his name. Having had a friend like him, it seems to be easier for you to make new friends; you're learning the names of your regular park playmates and even seem to know how best to play with each one.

As always, you love figuring things out and have an amazing ability to focus. You managed to untie the farm gate at the zoo last week as a bemused zookeeper looked on. You clip your stroller belts, climb up the kitchen stool, unscrew container tops (which can be dramatic and wet) and dig up roly-polies. Driven to discover, you're also prone to frustration more than ever. You seem to have realized that you will someday be able to do everything we adults can, and when that day isn't today, you can get frustrated. You don't have frequent tantrums, exactly: it's more like you're upset that the world isn't quite under your control. (Yet.)

You're obsessed with water, tunnels, stickers, animals, bugs, and shoes.

Your mom started taking you to a circus arts class where you love swinging on the trapeze ("peez") and running on the trampoline, crashing into a pile of mats at the end. Before starting this class, you learned to climb ladders on your own. And, for some time now, your favorite trick at the park has been to hang from the bar at the top of the slide, raise your feet up, and swing back and forth. Willa, your new friend, learned to do the same after watching you, and her grandma claims that she is now more daring on the play structure because of you! You're one tough kid.

You're living a mile a minute these days; it's as much as we can do just to keep up!

We love you very, very much,

Mommy & Daddy

 

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Here's this month's slideshow. If you can't see the pictures down there, click this link.