A year and a half!

Wow, Zadie; in two days you'll be a year and a half old. You're SO smart. That's the theme of this post.

Language: Not only are you now mastering four-syllable words (like iridescent), you are getting the hang of tenses and pronouns. I mean, wow! If we say "Did Zadie eat cake?" you'll reply "Zadie ate cake." Or "Grandma walks" becomes "Grandma walking." And we're working on "she" and "he" and who you use them with. You can have whole conversations about what you did during the day, or a birthday party you went to. You also love to ask "who's that?" You point to people or to Sesame Street characters and say "who's that? Who's that? Who's that?" You still love reading books, too.

Letters: You absolutely love the alphabet song and ask for it all the time. You can sing parts of it along with me. You love to look at printed words and guess what letters they say. Today you had my "irony" bracelet and said "D - O - X." You had the "O" right, anyway. You actually do recognize Os, Xs, and Cs at the very least. We can ask you to push the "C" button on your duck toy, and you will. If you get a pen, the first thing you do is say "E!" You want us to make Es all the time.

Shapes: We're getting there. You recognize circles, though you occasionally mix them up with squares. You've got triangles pretty much down pat, and you love to say "oval."

Colors: You get the colors right some of the time. You can say them all clearly, and last night I pointed to a red dot and said red, a blue dot and said blue, then I pointed to a green dot and YOU said green before I could.

Numbers: Last weekend I was talking to myself as I did chores and said "One, two, three, four, five" and then a minute later, "One, two, three, four." You supplied the "five." If I say "One," you'll say "two" and then we trade off up to five.

I guess that's about it. You have your 18 month appointment on Friday, and I imagine that everything is well. You are actually a little sick tonight. It might be related to teething, but you did throw up. If you are sick, it's the first time. I think it's wonderful that you've been such a healthy baby (milk allergy and reflux aside).