Keeping Up with the... Summers

Summer is now 19.5 months of age. She amazes us daily as to the things she can do.

She can:

- Speak in sentences and string ideas together. Example: "Mommy's eating a pear like Summer!"

- Use appropriate verb tense, including past and present perfect.

- Count to 10 all by herself, as well as recognize multiples of things without prompting. Example: "Summer has 3 blankets."

- Completely recite the alphabet, but with "L-L-L-O-P" instead of "L-M-N-O-P"

- Recite some letter sounds, like "M" says "Mmmm"

- Recall that Mommy starts with M, Summer starts with S, and sometimes Daddy starts with D.

- Recognize many capital letters in isolation.

- Ask questions with Who and sometimes What. Her current favorite is: "Who's THAT?!", and our current favorite is: "Hi, _________, whatchu DOING?!"

- Answer questions with all Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How.

- Tell you accurately what color something is, including red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, black, brown, and white.

- Retelling of past events. Example:

S: "Summer crying."

M: "Where was Summer crying?"

S: "In the car."

M: "Why was Summer crying?"

S: "Carseat." (translation: she didn't want to get in the carseat, a story that happened earlier in the day)

- Remembers people she met months and months ago, even with no recalling cue like a picture. She remembers names of people and dogs better than we do!

OK, enough with the teacher things. Here are some real things:

-She loves to role play, whether it be play cooking in her play kitchen, taking care of her babies, or play acting a transportation scene with her train set.

- She loves getting her hands into things like Play-Doh, painting, coloring, and sand. She often identifies objects when doing free-style art (like trees, clouds, etc) or making shoes and airplanes with Play-Doh, but is learning to draw happy faces (her favorite).

- She is innately social, loving her interactions with older kids. She is magnetically drawn to her older peers, always wanting to participate in things that are years beyond her (going back to our previously mentioned "Kalon Kar" personality). However, she catches on rather quickly and can fit right in in the right situation with the right kids! She also warms up to new people quite quickly, which is always nice in new situations.

- She loves to sing songs, completely reciting songs like "Ring Around the Rosie","Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "The Wheels on the Bus", and the Barney "I Love You" song. She also loves listening to Bob Marley and can recognize his music. Her personal fave is "Say Something".

- She is drawn to screens like no child I've ever seen. Although we keep her away from television, we occasionally sneak in a YouTube clip here and there of Elmo or Barney or the alphabet and she will often break into a full-on fit even when fully prepared for it to be over. Makes it less enticing to the parents.

- She's intensely affectionate, always making time for kisses and hugs to everyone, especially her us and other close family. It warms my heart to watch her run to hug her grandparents and to warmly offer kisses to us at every opportunity.

- She loves to make jokes and make us laugh. She is starting to learn how to tell jokes and is always looking for a laugh, which makes her very pleasant to be around.

All in all, she keeps us saying Wow on a daily basis and working hard to keep up with her incredible mind. Whoever said that development would slow down at 1 year old must have been talking about someone else's kid....