Nineteen Months

Navelle turned nineteen months old today. We marvel at how quickly she's growing and learning and changing with each month. She surprises us every day with new words that she has picked up in context, without being taught them explicity. (it's time for us to be very careful about what we say!). Lately she wants to sing songs and nursery rhymes together and she's learning the lyrics to many of them. Frosty the Snowman, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Rock-a-bye Baby, Jack and Jill. We sing and then Navelle says, "again, please." Tonight in her crib, as she was falling asleep, we could hear her saying, "santa coming to town!" (her slighly modified version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"). She even uses the right voice inflection, raising her pitch at the "to town!" part. Her other big love is dancing, especially to "Monkey Dance." Gabe tried to see how many times she would do it before she tired of it but after about 20 replays of that particular song ("no more monkeys jumping on the bed") he couldn't stand it anymore. Navelle was still going strong. We walk to the playground together and sometimes she can walk for most of the one-mile trip. She loves the swing best, followed closely by the slide. She has a bold attitude towards things and loves a challenge. If she finds a difficult step or slope she'll go back and do it over and over again until she can do it well. then she finds another challenge. She's also very social and loves groups of people and kids. We are taking her to a toddler play class once a week and each time she runs into the center of the group with great gusto, ready to start dancing and playing with the kids. She gets right into the middle of it with a big smile and a hop-hop-hop. We feel very happy that Navelle is part of our lives.