You guys? I am FOUR, and we never even did a post on that, and poor Lulu missed out in her 19 month post entirely, and I had a first day of school, and omygoodness we have just been terribly busy around here! Let’s try to catch up just a little bit…
Lulu is my shadow – she gets mad whenever I go somewhere without her, and has to play with all of my toys. Mommy even dressed us in matching outfits for our whole week of vacation! People are always asking if we are twins which is ridiculous since I am FOUR and Lulu is still a baby. Lulu is catching up with me in terms of height – she is in the 87th percentile compared to my 5th percentile, She is about 34″ tall, which is not so far behind my 38″ and, at about 25 lbs is only 6 lbs lighter than me! I’m still *just barely* in size 3T, and she’s making the transition into 24 months.
She gobbles up everything in sight! We BOTH love mac & cheese at Panera, but she prefers chicken while I LOVE shrimp and steak. One of her favorite foods is miso soup – in fact, she’ll eat almost any kind of soup. I have recently discovered cheeseburgers and love them with pickles and ketchup on top.
We love Disney Junior, and Lulu enjoys dancing ANY time any kind of music comes on. We found Bubble Guppies on the Roku and that’s Lulu’s favorite. She will be continuing Music for Aardvarks starting on Monday, which will soften the blow of not being able to come to school with me.
I have longer school days this year, and more of them; on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I even get to eat lunch with my class! AND I go on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, too. I am going to be a genius after this year, probably. I’m SUPER excited to be starting swimming class later this month – I want to be on the swim team and the lessons are prerequisites. I have decided I want to be a lifeguard when I grow up,
BabyCenter doesn’t have the same milestone charts anymore, but we can use the one I posted when *I* was 20 months to see how Lulu compares:
Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
- Feeds doll – sometimes. Mostly she really likes giving her babies rides in the stroller and giving them lots of hugs and kisses.
- Takes off own clothes – rarely… only when she sees I’m in a bath and she wants to come in, too!
- Dumps an object in imitation, such as throwing garbage away – YES. She is very helpful if you want something put in the garbage.
Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
- Learns words at a rate of 10 or more a day – Lulu’s lexicon has been growing by leaps & bounds, but I think 10 a day is a LOT. She understands almost everything, and is getting to be more and more of a chatterbox.
- Can walk up stairs (but probably not down) – Up, yes. Down? Well, I *may* have taught her the bad habit of jumping. *I* am big and can jump and land with no problem; Lulu, on the other hand, sort of leaps with no plan or landing strategy so you’ve got to watch out for that.
Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
- May start exploring genitals – That’s not really any of your business.
- Draws a straight line – hmmmm… maybe? She does draw a lot more than I did at 20 months – I was still more into eating the crayons at that point.
- Names several body parts – She can ID a bunch of them (eyes, mouth, nose, cheeks, knees, feet, tummy, toes, hands, fingers, elbows, etc), but only names a few of those .
I am going to refer to BabyCenter again for my milestones, but they are not nearly as neatly laid out as the younger sets were.
Cognitive Development
- Uses sentences of six or more words – sentences? PARAGRAPHS. I will tell you whole stories.
- Speaks well enough for strangers to understand – mostly. Sometimes I go to fast, and then Mommy translates.
- Starts to use “s” on verbs to show present tense (“he runs”) – Yup.
Social and Emotional Development
- Develops friendships independent of you — at preschool, for instance – I am Mr. Popularity, and I make friends *everywhere.* It is not uncommon for me to introduce myself to random children in stores and then ask when I can go to their houses.
- Plays with other children, instead of just side by side – Definitely. We play ninjas and tag, and all sorts of games.
Physical Development
- Uses a spoon and fork like an adult – I’ve been doing this forever.
- Brushes teeth (he will still need your help and supervision) – No problem!
