Two Year and Six Month Baby Update

[dorchadas]

Laila is two and a half years old!

In the two year and four month update I wrote about how I was worried about her sentence usage, but she's been making up on that score. We taught her "I want [x]" and she picked up on it very quickly, and we've been quick to enforce it too. Of course, she's a toddler, so she gets derailed halfway through. She'll point and say "This. Bite." and then I'll say, "I. Want. Bread." and she'll think a moment and say "I...want...mohlow!!! [marshmallow] and then point to the kitchen cabinet where sashagee keeps her hot chocolate supplies. She know what she wants and what she wants is dessert.

She started her early intervention therapy after her assessment which showed her as almost a year behind in speech. After the speech therapist's first visit, she asked sashagee if the assessing therapists told her anything when they did Laila's assessment, and when sashagee said it was over Zoom, the therapist did a 😐 face. She has since said that she's positive she won't be seeing Laila after her next assessment and that most of the kids she sees don't talk at all, or barely. The occupational therapist had a similar reaction and that one I was there for--she interacted with Laila for an hour, and then rather than telling us what her plan was to help Laila get on track, she asked us if there was anything we waned her to work on. Laila is clearly not nearly as bad as the Zoom assessment would indicate.

Lately, she has really taken to Judaism, by which I mean that she'll sometimes take two cups from her dish playset, put them side-by-side like Shabbat candles, cover her eyes with one hand, and start trying to sing. And her current two favorite books were sent to us by PJ Library--one is called Fridays Are Special, about Shabbat preparations including baking the ḥallah (her favorite part), and the other is called Hoppy Hanukkah!, about a family of rabbits getting ready to celebrate Ḥanukah. That book is still a little advanced for her, but she's asking to read it. Book progress!

Also, she's finally helping mama in the kitchen. After watching a Kimono Mom video about a フルーツサンド (cream and fresh fruit sandwich), she helped sashagee make the cream and put the sandwich together and then got to eat it while wearing her Totoro apron:

Once again, I can use the Chiyo-chan cooking icon.

What other ways will she grow and change?

Comments

[gwendraith]

You write such lovely updates about Laila, it'll be fun to read back on them when she's grown up :)

>She knows what she wants and what she wants is dessert.
Of course! "Sugar and spice, and everything nice; That's what little girls are made of."

She's enjoying that sandwich:)

[dorchadas]

Smartphones are lovely because I'm going to have so many cute (read: extremely embarrassing for her) photos and videos of her when she gets older. Like the video I linked in this post.

She's enjoying that sandwich:)

She loves food! Any food really--sashagee got me some spicy pickled eggs as a "This sounds disgusting, dorchadas will love it" thing and Laila wanted to try some. She ate a bit, her face turned red, she made a 😲 expression...and then pointed at the egg and said, "Bite. Please?"

[gwendraith]

Oh, that video is precious! She's so verbal in her own way :)

It's good that you get her to experiment with different foods and that she enjoys variety :) It must be frustrating to have a child that will only eat one or two things, although most grow out of that!

[earthspirits]

That's adorable that she always wants dessert? (who doesn't?). : )

[dorchadas]

I sure do, that's for sure! And Laila comes running when I open the cabinet where I keep my sweets, so...

[symbioid]

It's interesting the "this.bite." vs "i want mahmallow" - like she knows she's hungry and bread is there now.

But "want"? Well bread is saying here now in belly, but want? want marshmallow! That

's like interesting to see the differences in instant hunger satiation with visible instant/now thing (need) vs desire/want (treats). Or maybe I'm misreading? But that reflection let her think what her desire besides "fulfilling hunger" was and moved on to what she really wanted. And now I'm pondering this in relation to needs vs desires and delay of satisfaction (e.g. The Marshmallow Experiment)

I can't imagine as a parent I'd pick up on this but seeing it typed out in stories it's fascinating.

[dorchadas]

Whenever I hear about the Marshmallow Experiment, I think of the real confounding factor, which is whether the kids trusted the adult to actually give them the second marshmallow or if they thought the adult was bullshitting them to keep them quiet.

(This correlates with parental income, of course)

But you're right! It does show an understanding of personal wants. Sure, it's funny when she says it over and over, but it means she remembers the marshmallows, that we give them to her sometimes, and that they're there and if she can convince mama she'll get some. A far cry from her not understanding we still existed when we left the room!