14 months

Dear Lily,

Yesterday you turned 14 months old.

Now that you are so steady on your feet you have really started to claim your independence. Gone are the days when you would cling to me and shy away from other people. Now you tend to simply take off and get right into things without looking back. It is so much fun to watch.

You have really grown into a very confident and sociable little person. You just love getting out into a crowd and mixing with people (especially other little people). You love to try new things and have a frightening lack of fear when it comes to heights and dogs and generally anything that could actually harm you.

I thought that you had a brain explosion last month, but this month your language really just took off. I am amazed by how much vocabulary you picked up this month and just how much you are able to put it to use in communicating with us (and to increase your capacity to be very specific and determined about what you would like).


You now know most of your body parts and like to point to them and name them (especially our eyes, which can be a little painful at times)- these include: arm; cheeks; chin; ears; eyes, hair; hands; head; knee; leg; mouth; nose; teeth; and toes. You are also quite obsessed with animals and now know the words for: ape; bear; bird; cat; chicken; cow; dog; duck; fly; gibbon; lion; mice; moose; mouse; turtle; and whale.


Despite your generally low level of interest in food, you have also picked up quite a few food words (particularly focused on those that you like or those that we say a lot), including: apple; banana; biscuit; bread; breakfast; dinner; lunch; pasta; pea; pear; pizza; plum; rice; tea; and tofu.

Words for objects and places seem to be particularly useful to you. Now you don’t have to just wave your hands around and yell at us until we finally stubble upon the item that you were after. Instead you can demand it by name and, where possible, that is exactly what you do. Some of the things that you have learned to name this month include: bag; balloon; book; bottle; bowl; bus; crayon; doll; garden; glasses; kitchen; peg; pen; seat; teddy; washing; and (embarrassingly, because it was only after seeing them twice, but now you are truly obsessed) The Wiggles. You have also picked up the words for bib; moon; nest; poo; star; and wall, but have yet to demand any of them.

[Lily on her way to the garden]

Speaking of demanding, you have also learned a number of commands that have proved useful in getting us to do what you want/need. These include: again; bounce; more; read; rock; sing (or “bush”; “round” or “row” when you want us to sing particular songs – “Here we go round the mulberry bush”; “The wheels on the bus”; and “row, row, row your boat”); and wee (when you want to swing or go down a slide). Fortunately you have also discovered that the addition of the word “please” to these commands considerably helps your cause.

Other actions that you can perform yourself and like to declare aloud as you do so include: dance; push; sit; sneeze; and splash. You also like to make noises to accompany your actions (or those of others), including: boo; bang; beep; bonk; meow (pronounced mee); pop; roum (car noise and, apparently, the noise that wheelchairs make!); swish; woof; quack; and your new noises for dogs and ducks: woh-dog & woh-duck (I hope that you keep these ones for quite some time!). You have also picked up a few numbers – specifically two, four, nine and ten. You will say these in sequence during your number books, but have really shown no interest, thus far, in any of the other numbers. In fact, generally it is just nine that you are focused on.

Adjectives are also starting to speckle your vocabulary, including: blue; clean; cold; done; dry; gone; green; mine; nice; and same. “Mine” in definitely your favourite. Sometimes it is also replaced with “my”, as in “my baby”, “my teddy”, “my bear” and “my mama”. You have also picked up a number of words for yourself, including: pixie; Lily, and me. I hadn’t realised how often I call you Pixie until you started referring to yourself that way. It sounds incredibly cute coming out of your mouth.

Another name that you came up with the other day was for a toy monkey that I have just finished making for you. Before it was even finished you started demanding his unfinished head, exclaiming Boo-boo over and over again until I relinquished him to you. Now that he is finished, you carry him around saying “boo-boo” “boo-boo” and you sound just like Yogi bear. It is uncanny.

Finally, you are starting to create little phrases and through them we can see what it is that we say to you far too often. These include: back-in-there; done-now; and see-you-soon.


I am just loving this new phase of your development. As your language increases Papa and I are getting the chance to get to know you even better and it is such fun. You really are such a cool little person and being able to have crazy conversations with you is just making that even clearer.

love
mama
xoxo