Our Beada turned twenty-one months on the 4th of January.

Her speech is getting clearer and clearer, though it still retains that charming aspect of toddler speak in that it often seems utterly unintelligible until you suddenly understand what she’s saying, and then you wonder why you never understood it before, it’s so obvious.

I was standing in the kitchen the other day while she was in her chair at the table, strapped in (as always) with the ring sling we use as a high chair safety belt. She was repeating something over and over, and I was only half-listening to the garbled syllables when I realized she was asking to be excused. “Maybescoosed…maybescoosed…” She has picked this up from watching her siblings. She was delighted when I finally acquiesced to her request.

Another phrase she’s developed is singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star–this goes peekoh, peekoh, ee ah-ha and now all stars are ee ah-ha’s, which is important to know if she’s plaintively crying it over and over pointing at something and if you only knew what it was, you could give it to her. Now you know that it’s that felt star stuck to the wall that she’s wanting. Or, possibly, the little book that plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star that she got for Christmas.

Beada also received socks for Christmas, and the things are the joy of her life. She begs for her “sockies” to be put on, and is even more keen on having shoes put on top of those, and if she has footed pajamas on and can’t wear shoes or socks, well…that may just be the end of the world.

She still air-bites. It’s always easy to tell if you’ve displeased her.

She adores her Baby Aurick. She goes to sleep every night with four or five Baby Auricks in her crib. One is a stuffed fox doll, one is a cut-and-sew doll she got for Christmas, one is a baby doll that actually belongs to her sister, etc. They are all named Baby Aurick.

And she says his name with perfect clarity–we were assuming that she would christen him with a nickname as other children have done (Ephraim called Clive Tiggy, Elvie called Eldore Dodo, Eldore called Beatrice Deedee, etc.) But she has no trouble saying his name, and so he’s the first Kransling to be called his real name from birth.

She loves to sing–she gets very excited when it’s time to sing at the breakfast table. She loves “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” and the aforementioned “Peekoh Peekoh” and (I assume because the melody is the same) she has begun to sing her ABC’s. But she really loves “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” although she prefers it if you sing it instead of her.

A few days ago I was trying to feed her oatmeal when she kept turning her head and crying. Then she would point to her oatmeal. I would try to give her a spoonful, and she would turn her head and cry again. Then she’d point again at her oatmeal bowl. It took a few repetitions of this before I realized that she wanted to feed herself. I am not exactly sure why I was still doing that for her (other than I didn’t want oatmeal all over the floor.)

other twenty-one month updates:
ephraim + clive + anselm