Nineteen Months: Running, Climbing, Laughing

Cordelia is just about nineteen months old. I took her to the doctor for her eighteen month checkup and she has gained almost no weight and grown, like, an inch. I don't have the exact numbers but really, no-one is all that interested.

She recently uttered her first real sentence: she pointed to a spot that Morgan had recently vacated and said "Morgan sat, uh, there." She says "uh" a lot, and she's fairly bad with names, including mine. I was holding her and looking in the mirror a few weeks ago and I said "Who's that?" She said "Baby!" So I said "Who else?" "Baba... uh... Mummy!"

She's good on her feet; she runs, she climbs, she tries to keep up with her big sister at the park. She can almost, almost, climb downstairs like a normal person. Except today she was standing on a step and she overbalanced and came headfirst down the stairs. Fortunately I was standing right there and caught her, head first, but she's not allowed to go downstairs by herself any more, unless she goes backwards which she never does any more because going backwards is for babies!

She likes to walk; every time we try and put her in the stroller she protests, and she would much rather be out and walking on the sidewalk, climbing up onto every ledge and wall, picking up dubious bits of jetsam, wandering onto people's lawns. But once she's in the stroller she's usually cool with that, too. She's generally a laid back little kid, really.

Cordelia loves sit at the dining table and colour when Delphine is there drawing. She loves stickers even more, but I don't really have any that are big enough for her to manage. I will have to pick some up. She also tends to draw on the walls, which Delphine never did, so walking around the house with writing implements is another thing she is not allowed to do.

She dances! I was reading a book of nursery rhymes this morning, and singing the ones which have a tune, and she got up and danced; "dancing" is just turning around and around and then throwing herself at the ground, which works best for Ring a Ring a Rosie but which she manages to adapt to a surprising number of songs.

What else? I gave her a haircut a week or so ago; she was getting a little mulletty in the back while the wispies at the front were getting in her eyes, so I just generally hacked at it all around and it came out mainly pixie-ish with a little of the Franciscan monk around the front. You'll have to take my word for it, it's pretty cute. Delphine didn't like it, though, on the grounds that she didn't look like Cordelia, and that she looked like a boy. She seems to have gotten used to it, though.

Cordelia is very independent; she wants to put in clothes by herself, she insists on feeding herself (and in the manner of her choosing, which is usually with fingers -- did you know hummus is finger food? Me either.) She gets very irate if you try and do things for her.

Cordelia is still a lot of fun; she is quick to laugh and recovers from setbacks quickly. She's affectionate and cuddly and generally easy and pleasant to be with. It's probably also way easier to deal with a second child; I am fairly sure that nothing I do is going to break her, so I just let her be most of the time.