This past Thursday Josie turned 2 and 3 months old. We’ve been busy lately traveling and so her usual routine has been uprooted a bit but she’s still held on to a bunch of constants.

The biggest difference have been her language skills, even though its hard to quantify not being a child development specialist myself. She’s been using some complicated sentences in my opinion such as “I want you to open this side, but not the other”. She has dropped her old habit of saying ‘my’s’ for me, my I, etc. She mostly uses the right word and she has started correcting herself when she is using past vs. present tense. She can say her entire name now too and now understands the major question words (what, where, when why, how) that used to elude her. Everything that happened in the past though continues to have happened ‘yesterday’ despite it being actually yesterday or three months ago. Her memory is seriously that good that she will remember things that haven’t come up in months. It’s very helpful when asking her where she put things (like puzzle pieces she now thinks are funny to hide).

Physically she’s running lots. I’m trying to get her walking more and more, but my tolerance for the heat this summer has thwarted that idea a bit as I don’t want to walk anywhere or be out in the heat any longer than I have to! She loves to jump up and down to the ‘up and down’ song from Yo Gabba Gabba.

Her favorite toys right now are her puzzles (24 piece ones most popular) and human-analogs to pretend with. She has amazing focus on the puzzles and once she’s done them a time or two with us she can do them alone.

She loves to play with other kids and is amazingly social (except when doing puzzles). Today at the mall a girl of maybe 6 or 7 came up to her and said ‘hi hi!’ and waved at her before walking away saying how cute Josie was. Josie was a little shocked but then immediately chased after the girl and grabbed her hand and walked half the mall holding her hand. Jordi and I walking behind in amusement. She was not pleased when we separated ways.

She’s a big fan of older girls but plays well for her age with kids her own age. She will most always use her words (loudly) with statements like ‘It’s my turn now!’ when someone grabs or ‘I want it!’. She told Bronwyn the other day ‘Don’t push me!’ after being shoved. I’m so proud of my assertive girl, it’s hard to find that balance and not be aggressive or a doormat and I think she’s getting the idea. Unfortunately other kids (and Josie) don’t always exactly listen to their friends, I often end up repeating what they said to point it out to her.

Numbers and letters have been especially fascinating to her lately and so we’ve been trying to point them out more. She can count to ten reliably and then after that a few start getting lost, but she counts in increasing order, just missing a few or 8 numbers in a row. I’ve been reading probably an hour and a half to her throughout the day, she’s an avid listener and it’s nice for me to get some time sitting.

In her art, she enjoys markers a lot now. This week we got the first demonstration of her understanding the idea of coloring books when she colored one color in the general vicinity of each part of the picture/characters.

Physically she’s been growing like a weed although I don’t have exact stats. She’s put on at least 2 lbs in the last two months, might be almost 30 lbs now.

• Size/weight: size  3T, ~29 lbs and ~36″ tall standing
• Favorite food: cheese, pasta – fairly wide variety, willing to try most things
• Favorite toy: puzzles, water
• Favorite books: Elephant and Piggie books, Amelia Bedelia, Madeline
• Favorite activity: Going outside and playing with other kids, sand play, reading, jumping and reading
• Sleeping: bedtime ~8:30; 1:30pm ~2hr naps; gets up ~6am
• New skill: complicated sentences
• Teeth: 16. 8 on the top and 8 on bottom, still waiting for those molars
• Vocalizations: Almost entirely conversational with strangers understanding her commonly

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 31st, 2010 at 5:36 pm by Jen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.