Little Owl @ 19 months

Teeth

Still with a nice even 12 but at least one of her canines is making a bid for freedom!

Signs

I really have lost count now!  Little Owl made it to 50 signs but I just can't keep up!  One of her current favourite signs is for pen or writing.  Little Owl just loves drawing and even holds her pens properly!  Always in the left hand - she used to swap over but I haven't seen her use her right hand for a pen for at least a month possibly two.  Another favourite sign is the letter 'I' which stands for Little Owl's best friend and cousin Woo.  You can sign 'I' by pointing with your forefinger to the middle finger on your other hand.  Little Owl doesn't always get the right finger but she made a very good attempt at the first go which shows how hard she is trying to be understood.

Words

The other day I heard someone speaking on the radio about speech development in toddlers.  She said that most fall in to one of two types.  The first type is the kids that can say lots of individual words.  The second type was described as those who know the tune and not the words.  Little Owl definitely fits into this category - I think she may even start to talk without me noticing as I'm so used to hearing her chatting away and sometimes you can join in a conversation as you can fix some words to the sounds she is making.  Way back in September, Little Owl was able to say 'where mumma is' without actually saying more than 'mumma' before.  This weekend I was out with my family and Little Owl was on my back.  I could hear her babbling but didn't really pay any attention until a stranger handed me Little Owl's hat which she had dropped on the floor.  It was then that I realised that she had shouted 'my hat my hat', my family had also heard this but not taken it in until we were given the hat!

     

What's new?

Most of the new things this month involve talking - she now says 'choo choo' whenever we mention Granddad who works for a preservation steam railway.  Everything at the moment is 'upthere' 'upstairs' 'downthere' 'downstairs' for which she also points in the appropriate direction.  I think without the pointing, you wouldn't understand what she is saying, again, the tune is there but not the words.

In the water, Little Owl is just growing in confidence - we have gone from 7 floats on her belt to 5 in the last few weeks.  She didn't notice when I took the first one away, but its taken her a couple of weeks to get used to 5.