Eek! 18 months!

Ahhh, Violet is 18 months old! It hardly seems possible. There is a big part of me that has been kind of dreading the 18-month mark, because that was when I really started to have a hard time with Jack. I remember at the time asking other moms for advice, and so many people said that it's just the age. They are starting to talk but aren't able to fully communicate everything they want. And they are also starting to realize both how powerful and powerless they really are in their own world.

We are definitely seeing a lot of that with Violet. She's already been showing that she has a mind of her own. She has definite likes and dislikes, and she is not shy about expressing either.

Her two current favorite things to do are nurse and watch "Signing Time" videos. We've recently graduated from the "Baby Signing Time" DVDs to the regular "Signing Time" ones. Each of those episodes starts off with a little song that has "Signing time with Alex and Leah" in its chorus, so now all the videos are "Deetah" (her way of saying "Leah") to Violet. That's all she says to me all day long, "Deetah! Deetah!"

She would seriously watch those videos every single waking moment if I let her, and sometimes it's so tempting to do just that. Because otherwise she is completely underfoot and clingy and just wanting to nurse constantly. She is normally pretty good about saying "please" and "thank you," but if she asks to nurse and I tell her to say "please," she adamantly refuses. It's like she feels she's entitled to it, and she's not going to ask for it and is offended that I would even think she should. She just had the worst tantrum of her life last week, because I wouldn't nurse her until she said "please." (She never did say it.) Her tantrums are typically shorter and less intense than Jack's ever were, but this one was a doozy. I'm not sure why this is the battle she chooses to fight, but she is emphatic about not saying "please" to nurse.

It's amazing the way that her language is exploding these days. That's one reason why I feel not that guilty letting her watch the "Signing Time" videos. She is learning so much vocabulary, both spoken and signed. It makes it so much easier for us to understand what she wants. I'd been trying to keep track of all her new words, but it's getting harder and harder, because it seems like she learns five new words a day. Here are a few current favorites:

"Dolls" - she has a love/hate relationship with baby dolls, though. She'll like them for the first 5 seconds. She'll seem excited to see them, even giving them a kiss. And then it will be like she all of a sudden realizes that she thinks they're a little creepy after all, and she'll shrink away from them. It's kind of bizarre, but she says and signs "dolls" a lot.

"Ahmmy" - she says this all the time, and it's not always exactly clear what she means. Sometimes, it's how she says "Emmy," which is the name of one of our cats. Interestingly, she had learned the name of the other cat, Echo, first, but now she can't seem to remember that he isn't Emmy. She almost always calls him that too. But she also says "Ahmmy" when she wants me to pick her up or if she wants help. We think it might be a way of saying "Help me," although she also does know how to say "help."

"Tees" - this word's meaning is ever evolving with Violet. Lately, it has come to meant that she wants to sit on a chair. I don't know why.

"Eyes" and "nose" - one of her favorite games is to point to her eyes or her nose while saying the word. And then she'll do it to me when I hold her. If I ask her where her cheek, chin, ears, or feet are, she'll point to them as well.

Friends' names - in addition to "Ian," she has also learned "Addy" and "Rory." She says "Well" for Noelle, which I think is funny considering how she has absolutely no problem saying the word "no." I also think it's really cool that she knows which of our friends are "hers." Whenever I say the name of one of Jack's friends, she will say the name of the corresponding little sibling.

I think she has a hard time with long "a" and "i" vowel sounds, particularly if they come after a consonant. She can say "eyes," but she has a hard time with her own name or her friend Ryan's name. She calls herself "Vavi" and Ryan is "bobby." She also says "bobby" for "baby," even though she used to be able to say "baby" a lot more accurately. She loves "bobbies," though, and she is so cute with them when she sees them.

She is constantly surprising us. A few nights ago, I started reading her from our little rhyming Bible, and she signed and said every word she recognized, like "sun," "tree," "moon," "stars." I think I need to be a little more diligent about sitting and watching all of those videos with her, because there are things that she says and signs that we don't understand. And then I'll happen to catch a few minutes of the DVD, and a light bulb will go off in my head, "Oh, that's what she meant!" It's just so hard not to give in to the temptation to get other stuff done while she's content with her shows, because otherwise both she and her brother are incredibly high-maintenance.

We have been blessed to have received so many hand-me-downs from friends. Violet is finally big enough to wear 18 month clothes, and wow! do we have a ton. I love going through our stash and trying to figure out what cute outfit I'll dress her up in that day.

So these last couple of weeks have been fun but a little rough with Violet. I don't know if the fact that I've gone through it all (and more) with Jack will end up being good or bad for her. I definitely have less patience for the tantrums, but I also feel less helpless. I am firmer about setting limits with her than I was with Jack at this same age, which probably means that things will get intense more quickly but hopefully they will calm down more quickly too. Fingers crossed!