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Sweet 16 months

Sweets is kinda going through a gorgeous phase. She is a playful, affectionate and generally happy wee thing.

Examples, one night she woke up needing to go to the toilet. I picked her up and took her there. She did her business, told me she’d finished (she says “ishish” and does her baby sign) and then kissed me on the cheek. By the time I’d got her back into the bedroom she was already asleep.
We’re working on toileting (I probably could toilet train her properly, but nappies are easier to clean than floor etc, is that wrong), so I sat her on the toilet and she demanded her “baba” (normally she “reads” books or magazines). Once given her Baby Kate, she breastfed her (held her close and made sipping noises), then put her to sleep (rocked her a bit and shushed her), after that apparently Baby Kate woke up and wanted a horsey ride (bounced on knee with clipclop noises)!
She still loves bubbles and I recently found out that she can dip and blow them herself!

Beau and I are both really enjoying her increased communication skills too. Words include Car (meaning cars, buses, trucks and her pushchair), Khao (apparently she prefers the thai word for food), Baba (for babies and her baby doll), Dodo (door), Do-do (slightly different sound means dolly), brow (eyebrow), Na Ma (for her Aunty Muggle, Na is thai for younger maternal aunt or uncle), ish (fish), bok (book), bok (bonk, referring to having hit/hurt herself frequently on the head), A-ma (Maya the cat), cup (cups and bottles), shoe-shoe (shoes *and* socks, she know the difference, but she calls them both the same), gah-ga (Grradhai, thai for rabbit) and help (she does the sign for this too). Favourite words are probably Mama, Dada, No and Moar (more).

She is also trying out a lot more words (people’s names etc), but they are often not so consistent, eg she said “phone” today and I think she’s been trying to say “read” too. Sometimes she seems to prefer the thai word to the english, eg I’ve heard her attempt “Tankayah” more frequently than “rubbish bin”.

She is also really keen on helping/taking part in activities. I can’t do anything in the kitchen now without Sweets wanting me to set up the step ladder for her to join in too. She especially loves when I do dishes. Mostly because it’s an opportunity for her to indulge in water play. The other day I was in the kitchen prepping dinner and my Mum (Yai Ja) was playing with Sweets. I heard Yai ask Sweets (in thai) to put a piece of rubbish in the bin. Yeah, right, I thought. What happens but Sweets toddles in and goes straight to the rubbish bin and deals with the rubbish! I thought she’d try and get it out again, but no. She did want to join in with cooking then though.

Sweets likes to dance and listen to music. Her movements are getting more and more controlled, she recently learned to spin and can jump! She is kind of addicted to watching videos on the computer, special favourites are *any* videos of her, animal videos, Beyonce’s Single Ladies (Sweets will do the action of putting a ring on it) and new favourite, the algorithm march (she dances and sings along because she is awesome).

We also make our own music. Sweets will get out the Ukulele for me (the music book too) to play and sing. She often likes to strum it herself. When she’s decided we’ve played enough she will tell me (ishish + finish sign) and try to put it away. She can also blow and make noise with a harmonica and a recorder. She thinks keyboards are pretty fun too.

A couple of times we’ve been out and people have remarked on her good behaviour. I don’t think she is freakishly good (for example she is a fiend for taking food off people’s plates), but here are my tips for “good behaviour”.

1) Make sure they are well rested, well fed and recently changed/toileted
2) If you only ask them to do things they want to do, you are going to get good results
3) Have distractions (and snacks and clean nappies) ready at all times

Point of Fashion: Ok for play, but also OK for high tea
Current Obsession: to budget?

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