Major Developmental Leap

Since turning 18 months, Linus has become a new kid. It seems as though he is always doing or saying something new. For example, on Monday I ran out of room to write down his new things on the calendar. He pointed to the cd player and wanted me to turn on music. That is the first time he requested music. He said sticker for the first time. The sticker game goes like this: I pull out a sheet of stickers I'm willing to share. He points to the stickers he wants, I pull them off the sheet, and he puts the stickers on a shoe box that I gave him. We call it his treasure box. His treasures are buttons from my button stash, a little glass jar, and sea shells. He also started saying "peep peep" for little bird sounds. I say peep, peep and cheep, cheep for chicks and other little birds.

On Wednesday he did imaginative play with his stuffed bear from Peter and Betsy. He brought it into the kitchen and showed it the trash can, the pictures on the refrigerator, and gave it a pretend drink of water from his cup. Linus started dancing and I asked if the bear could dance. He bounced it around. This morning he was stacking his stuffed animals on his shelf and decided they all needed to lay down and sleep. He only just recently started playing with the stuffed animals that live on the shelf. I guess he thought they weren't for playing with until one evening I spread a blanket on the floor and pulled all of the animals down on top of it. I showed Linus how to pull up the corners of the blanket over them. Since this impromptu game he has played with the animals in different ways. Yesterday he pulled them all down onto his lap and wanted me to read books to all of them.

Linus' most recent skill is twirling. He twirls around to music and says "twirl." The first time he did it he invited me to join him.