Soph @ 20 months and other observations

Size

She was a perfectly good size at 10.7kg, height i'm not sure as she refused for her height to be measured at the paed's. Since it's not that important considering she's about as tall or taller than her peers as far as I can see, we chose to let her be, not necessary to check her height in cm. If need be, we could always check at home anyway.

But, she's been sick for the past 2 weeks. Bad cough with thick phlegm. She did have a temperature but only for a few days, and high fever only once.
Her nose is still runny but i'm just grateful I don't hear a raspy, hoarse sound when she breathes in anymore. that was scary..

So now her weight is exactly 10kg. Not sure where 10kg is on the chart for her age and height. But she does look thin. Her body I mean. Her cheeks are still chubby coz it is in the genes. You should see my niece's cheeks when she was a baby. Here's a photo, even this photo doesn't do justice to how full and squeezable her cheeks were :D

Still, I don't think Soph is underweight, on the lower side of the range maybe. The doctor would have said so if she was or she would've at least ask about what Soph is eating. It's not an issue UNLESS she loses more weight. It's a good thing Soph wasn't already on the low side of the good weight range before she got sick coz she'd be underweight by now.

I just googled for the chart. Go here if you would like to download it too.
I downloaded the 2 of 8 chart (Girls form Birth to 36 months).
So at 10kg, Soph is exactly on the 10th percentile.
And at 10.7kg before she got sick, she was above the 25th percentile.
All I know is that it means 90% of girls her age weigh more than she does at 10kg.
I'm trying to make her steadily put back on the weight she'd lost or at least am trying to make sure she doesn't lose more weight.

Speech

Vocabulary:
at 18 months, I recorded 124 words that she is able to say. Then I stopped recording it in my ipad because i couldn't keep up.
So at 20 months, i have no idea how many words would be on that list now. At least 150 i presume.

Can she talk?
It depends...

on your definition of what it means when we say a toddler 'can talk'.
I've always had a problem of answering people when they ask me if Soph has started talking.
I usually reply with "not really". and that she talks in her own language. she can speak a whole lot of single words and some 2 to 4-word sentences clearly, but she can't make real sentences yet. her long sentences are gibberish with sporadically-placed recognizable words. though i'm sure her gibberish means something real in her head because i've noticed a pattern in the sounds she uses for specific things. u'd probably notice it too if u observe her singing 'Are You Sleeping', the 'lyrics' in the videos that i'm gonna post further down below. also, her saying out those foreign words with gusto suggests she's saying something real.

After having replied the question on several occasions to different people, and having heard other mothers respond to the same question, more often than not I realize that some define 'talking' simply as, the ability to say out single words clearly. and that is why they claim that they (as a child) started talking at 9 months or a year, according to their moms.
I don't think their mothers were lying but I'm sincerely impressed that with 2-5 children or more, all grown and with kids of their own, they can remember which child started speaking exactly at which month. and that's only 'talking'. not to mention 'walking', 'potty trained', 'drinking milk fr a cup' and 'reading'. i doubt they maintained blogs or journals at that time. hehe
so how do they do it when I can't even say for sure which month my daughter (only child for now) who is not even 2 yrs old yet, started walking until i checked my blog? well now that i've checked and made a point to remember so i'd be able to answer truthfully and accurately when ppl ask, coz they will, i can tell them Soph took her first steps between 11-12 months. but 'talking', is trickier in my opinion.

So I spent some time thinking about it for a bit and came up with the theory below.

People's definition of when a child is able to talk varies from
[their ability to say out recognizable single words] to [their ability to converse exactly like adults but with limited vocab]
I must admit my difficulty in answering the simple question "can she talk?" stems from the latter, my definition. I agree that I was very clearly overthinking the question.

Anyway, I don't think my definition makes sense anymore.
Nor do I believe 'talking' as a skill in toddlers, is simply the ability for them to say out words.
That's just the vocabulary to me. And not knowing certain words does not mean they are slower or not as smart as kids who know that particular word. It just means that the kid has not been exposed to the word, that is all. I'm saying this coz i'm just concerned that some parents, when I say Soph can count from 1 to 10, compare it to their child's quiet ways with a disappointed face and as though Soph is a genius. Nvm the fact that we've been counting to Soph everyday, several times a day since before she was 1 and the fact that their child who's the same age as Soph could say a few words initially but has just stopped or refused to, probably due to his lack of interest in talking and his bigger interest in climbing and playing like a healthy, active boy.
And on the other side of the coin, the fact that he knows colours also means he was exposed to learning it, unlike Soph whom I expect not to recognise colours coz I haven't actively been exposing her to opportunities to learn them. It definitely does NOT mean "kids their age are supposed/not supposed to know how to say numbers 1-10/recognise colours".

I digress.

My definition of 'talking' is now the middle ground:
the ability for toddlers to say out words, be it a single word or a 2 to 4-words or more sentences, at appropriate times, in response to specific cues and questions with whatever number of vocab they have.

with this definition, i'd say Soph started talking at about 16-18 months. "more or less" - Oso style. hehe
upon deliberate observation, the whole of this morning, she's been talking/conversing with me like an adult would, but because the complexity of my questions and sentences were age appropriate, she was able to respond, request AND order(!) clearly and completely by utilising what words she already has in her current vocabulary.
it just goes to show how i hadn't noticed i have actually been conversing with her all along. a step above her just talking even.

by 'appropriate', i mean not merely repeating words after us but saying words that are relevant to a situation like "i did it!", "what's that?" and "what's this?"

to me, her gibberish sentences are a bonus to her 'talking'. it just means she enjoys talking and is confident doing so no matter how puzzled the audience are. just my opinion.

Other skills/developments

1. 1-10

she can count 1-10. 'count' meaning, saying the numbers out in order, not the arithmetical definition please.
she obviously doesn't know what amounts to 2 or 3 or 10 and so on.

like i mentioned above, we started exposing her to numbers 1-10 very early, especially 1-3.
she progressively learned how to say it.
read also: she cannot tell visually which numbers are called what ok?
she'd been able to say 1-10 out, but sometimes not in order or sometimes missing certain numbers.
eg. "1, 2, 3, 8, 6, 10!!" 1 and 10 have been constantly there at the right ends though ;P

since last week, she can now count 1 right up until 10 in the correct order without skipping a number. alhamdulillah :)

this video shows her counting to 5 and how cheeky this girl is.

1-5. or 2-5 to be exact


the making of.
she's mumbling and looking to the left coz she's looking at me and at her own cheeky reflection through a mirror

will try to capture the whole 1-10 when she's in a less mischievious mood ;)

2. Singing

i shan't say much and show you a vid of her singing instead, except
i) i think she sings somewhat in tune to the actual song
ii) most of the endings of each line in a song are what she's able to follow in a lot of songs

Soph singing 'Are You Sleeping'

can you hear how her version of 'morning bells are ringing' sound similar in both videos?

3. Acting

she remembers scenes of cartoons and movies, and acts them out complete with dialogue.
once, she did that for almost 5 minutes of the show, especially those prominent actions/gestures like pointing, lifting leg, turning around, bending, squatting, clapping, waving and closing mouth to laugh. now i know where she got her polite laughing 'style' from. Angelina Ballerina! and some other cartoons too if i remember right

4. Dancing

she seems to have the natural ability to dance in terms of rhythm and tempo :)

5. 'Motor(?)' skills on ipad

i'm aware that 99% of kids nowadays are skilled at using the ipad :D
Soph used to shoot angry birds in the wrong direction but now she knows it should go the other way.
she's also very good at 'baking' on one of the games we have on our ipad but i've posted that video here once.
she also knows to look in which 'folder' to find specific games. from memory, recognising how the app icon looks more than the memory of their usual location, coz she knows how to click the home button twice to be able to move the icons physically and she likes moving them around.
because of this, she has also deleted some apps

6. Art

no obvious conclusion can be derived yet ;)
so far she can doodle reasonably well. though not very interested in doing so.
she can't do much with clay but I assume they can create sthing only till later.
share with us if your child can do remarkable things with clay :) pleasee!

this is my work though. can you guess what it is? I love the movie. so does Soph. have you watched it?

7. Others

I sure do hope this is not a skill ;P