23-month-old Baby Singing

My baby generally loves singing and music in general. She can sing along with most nursery rhymes. Now, at 23 months, she prefers to sing by herself. She sings without being prompted. Here is a video of her singing "Twinkle Twinkle Star.

My Baby 's Growing Vocabulary

Abrielle just turned 22 months last July 24th. She is growing really fast and rapidly achieving her developmental milestones. She's been talking in sentences. Usually she speaks in 4-word-sentence. She uses more words when requesting or asking help from us. She also responds in words when asked. She talked more often now. Here are the words she says to us:
*Momma I love you.
*Daddy I love you.
*Thank you Momma.
*You're welcome.
* I want Barney.
* I don't want it.
*Momma hug.
*Good night daddy.
*Momma get up.
*daddy move back. ( we had to remind her to say please..then she'll say it again with the word please)
*I want sit down..
*I want milk.

Basically, she now verbally states what she wants and needs. Her vocabulary is ever growing. There are words she says that are still unintelligible. Sometimes she stops talking when we ask her to repeat what she said, especially when I said I didn't understand her words. I got to be careful with my response to her because she gets frustrated based upon her reaction when we ask her yo repeat her words. But she's doing  very well in as far as being able to communicate her wants and needs.

 Abrielle's favorite rhymes include "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," and "ABCs." She starts singing the ABCs while she was around 18 months or so. When she was about 20 months I was able to record a video of her singing it. She doesn't like being photographed let alone be captured on video. But when mommy sang with her, she didn't mind, I guess.

My Baby's Continued Growth and Development

I am still in awe by my baby's development. Modesty aside, her developmental milestones are somewhat advanced for her age. Please allow me to share about what she already does and knows that even her teachers at her daycare are pleased and excited about. My little girl knows the alphabet at 15 months. At 12 months, She can read some words and tells the names of objects. She identifies her body parts too. I guess what helped her a lot is I try to expose her to letters and words and make learning them fun. She counts her toys when she's in the tub. She can count to 10 unassisted. At twenty months she starts counting 1 to 20. She also knows the numbers and can name them randomly. Going back to alphabet, she starts singing the ABCs on her own at 19 months. She also sings other nursery rhymes at this age. When she was much younger before her first birthday, she does the action for every nursery rhyme she was exposed to. She loves the the following action songs: if you're happy and you know it, ms. Polly had a dolly, etc. She claps each time she sings an action and says "yey or hooray" when she's finished. Moreover, she can read words on her own. She can read words without pictures such as: see, like, very, funny, house, nose, etc.
Physically, she's also very active. She likes to hop and run. She's very independent. She helps me clean up as well. She knows where to put her toys back. She follows simple directions. Her knowledge of
basic colors and shapes also influenced the way she chooses what to wear. She likes clothing with animal prints or objects that remind her about familiar items on any story that we read.

Learning is Fun!

My daughter is way advanced other kids her age in terms of language development and recognition of letters, and words. I believe that her skills have a genetic component but I am a strong believer of having my child be exposed to learning just about anything. I have been singing and reading to my baby. I read to my baby during my entire pregnancy. And during the first twelve months, she's been exposed to a lot of reading materials either with big books or educational videos. I noticed my baby clamors for books and she enjoys browsing the pages of her books. Now that she's 21 months, her language skills are getting more developed. She loves to sing and memorizes every story I read to her. I am sharing one of the videos that captured her interest for learning- here she is singing the ABCs.

My Baby Loves to Read

This is another photo of Abrielle which was taken two days ago (June 24, 2014). By the way, her dad is  out for  one week due to a professional development conference. It is challenging to juggle between my motherly duties :-) as well as my teaching job for the summer camp which also commences this week. As expected, Monday was a bit rough. My routine begins with  having to drop my little girl to Kingdom Kids day care and pick her up in the afternoon at 2:00 P.M. Thankfully, I still have the energy to play with my little girl once we reach home. It is part of her routine. And for some reason, no matter how tired I am from work, all that fades away each time I see my little girl. Well, I'm so proud of my Abrielle (allow me to brag), because she is becoming more independent and she knows how to be entertained.

Abrielle likes to draw and sort objects. And she loves to do it with me. So, when it was time for me to prepare dinner, I left her in her play yard. After a few minutes, I came back surreptitiously to check on her for she was so quiet. To my amazement, Abrielle was seated on her soft chair and quietly skimming one of her books. She was pointing to words and pictures. I was so proud because I didn't have to tell her to get a book and read. She initiated to entertain herself while Mommy was cooking!

Exploring the Outdoors

Summer officially begins on the 21st of this month! This is going to be Abrielle's first summer where she will be doing a lot of exploring particularly the "great outdoors." Last summer, Abrielle was barely ten months when we had a road trip off to Chicago. I was so proud of my baby because she wasn't fussy during the trip. We made sure she got to stretch and relax at the assigned rest area for each town or city we went into. It was definitely a fun and memorable summer. This year, however, will be different. We didn't plan to go on a long road trip(unless hubby thinks otherwise). This will be an opportune time for us to bond with Abrielle and do some cool stuff within our backyard. Yes! She loves to walk and run. I try to be more responsible and careful with my health so I make it a point to do at least ten thousand steps twice a week or should I say "brisk walking." I just had to be more consistent with it though. So, here are some pictures of our trips around the yard. Abrielle enjoyed picking flowers and twigs. She likes to run around the yard. That in itself is her form of exercise and I could tell she was truly enjoying herself. I hope you guys enjoy the pictures and feel free to post some comments.

Outdoor Recreation

My little girl's exploring the outdoors! She loves running around in the yard. She likes picking flowers. She tries to imitate the cacophony of sounds emanating from birds, crickets and bugs. I am so amazed by how effortless it is to help her learn about her environment. She doesn't need to be encouraged because she naturally enjoys playing outside like most other toddlers do. 

Problem Solver

My daughter Abrielle has fascination with locking clips on her car seat's harness, on her high chair or any item that has a locking clip. She's very focused. It amazes me how simple things such as this one could make my baby engaged. On this video, she tries to hook and unhook the locking clips on her carrier. 

Christmas 2013

Christmas 2013 was Abrielle's second Christmas but I considered it more meaningful for her since she was able to participate in almost everything that we did to celebrate The birth of Christ! Abrielle took part in putting up the Christmas tree. She helped Mommy with hanging the ornaments! On Christmas Eve, Abrielle was dressed up like Little Santa as we attended a Christmas Party organized by the Fil-Am community in Roanoke Rapids! Abrielle did a great job because after the party, we headed to attend a midnight Mass at the Catholic Church. She was very behaved during the entire celebration. When we got back home, we did the family tradition of "Noche Buena" and we all thanked our Lord for this wonderful gift called family.

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Abrielle Says I love You at 2 Months of Age

My little baby was  barely two months old when one midnight she woke up and started to deliver unintelligible words. It was too cute I had to turn out the lights to check on her. She was rather in a pleasant mood that I began talking to her. Days prior to that I was used to her gently making a sound each time her diaper is soiled. And after each diaper change, I slowly rock her to sleep and she did so quite easily. For some reason, my hubby slept in the couch that night that he missed this wonderful milestone. I immediately got up and got my phone so I could document that special moment I shared with my baby.

So Cute... Baby Clapping

My little girl enjoys clapping when she was just 6 months of age. She now too can sit on her on her own. This video was take. During one afternoon while she was about to take a nap. Usually, I would sing or read o her. I read to her the story of the princess who couldn't cry. When she gets tired being read to about 5 times (yes, I read it 5 times per her request) I would sing her favorite song which is "If You're Happy and You Know it.." She would imitate me first and then she gets to do it on her own. This one particular video, she just did it on her own.since she likes clapping, I let her do it until she is ready to fall asleep..

1st Birthday Party Ideas

 My daughter Abrielle has reached her first year. And as proud Mom, I would say that I painstakingly waited for this milestone and for months I have pondered upon how my family is going to celebrate her big day.  I personally wanted Abrielle to have a simple birthday party. I wanted to celebrate it with a few of our close friends who have witnessed how our family blossomed.  My hubby let me plan the whole thing. I guess he trusted me enough to make final decisions from the theme of the party down to what Abrielle was going to wear. Three choices topped the birthday theme. I wanted her birthday to be bright and colorful, so I had the candyland, princess and under the sea themes in mind. I knew she wouldn't be able to remember the occasion but I want to make sure she would have a photo album that captures her first birthday celebration.
 In the end, I  chose the candy land theme. I realized that using the  princess theme party would be too extravagant and too early for her. Well, she is our princess. And maybe in the future when she's much older or in preschool, She would have Princess birthday theme party. The Under the Sea theme was also part of the choices because my baby shows fascination with fish and water so I figured I could use it as a theme for her birthday.  With it, I would probably end up using more of the color blue instead of rainbow colors which I thought would bring more party spirit and positivity. Hence, I chose the Candy land Theme instead.

         Next in the planning, I need to resolve where we could hold the party. I initially thought our house could be one choice since we have a big lawn and I would decorate the garden with little pieces to resemble a candy land. My hubby interjected that we could use our Parish Hall for the venue instead of our own abode. In that case, we did not have to worry about the tables and chairs. Plus, there will be enough room for our guests to socialize and mingle. I could have an area where the kids and small children can play games separate from the teenagers. I agreed with my hubby and it turned out that our Parish hall was indeed the perfect setting for the event.
 

 I would like to share some ideas on how I decorated (with my hubby's help) the venue to make it look bright and resembled a candy land. I opted to use pompoms with different colors instead of balloons. We hung the pompoms overhead the area in the middle where you could see the dessert table. My husband came up with lollipop candies using paper plates of different colors and we used bamboo skewers as sticks. I also asked one of my colleagues to make a welcome sign with a birthday greeting.









 She did a terrific job with decorating it and when it was finished, it highlighted the dessert table as well. I added a walk path in the middle of the hall leading to the dessert bar using construction papers of various colors. I taped them on the floor and it added additional beauty to the bar. I also included lollipop sticks as part of the centerpieces accentuating the table. On each table, I scattered some candies and small colored papers containing special information about my daughter. I cut them in small sizes so as not to appear messy on the table.  I am going to post pictures to show you how the entire hall was decorated.

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