18 Months

Emily just turned 18 months and every day is a new adventure. She is a very fun little girl with a lot of personality and definitely latin blood. There isn't a music playing she doesn't dance to and she is super feisty.

Favorite things

- Daddy. This one hasn't changed since she was about 5 months old. She simply ADORES her Daddy.

- Dora. Lately she has started this crazy obsession about Dora; every morning, I think before she even opens her eyes, her first word is "Dora!" We try to regulate it a bit but inevitably give in more than we should to this cute little request.

- Elmo. She's really starting to enjoy videos and characters and Elmo is at the top of her list. This started by her watching and singing Elmo's song. She can recognize him anywhere and loves a new stuffed Elmo that Shana, my sister in law, sent her.

- Balls. She continues to love playing with balls and constantly calls us so we go chase it around with her as she throws it all over the house.

- Swings. Sometimes we're driving in the car and she starts swinging from side to side saying "fwing fwang" over and over and asks us to take her to the "swings".

- Our doorbell. We have an interesting doorbell that she can turn on and change the sounds. It has about 10 different songs it plays through and she loves to turn it on and dance to them.

- Videos. She still likes youtube videos of Pocoyo, lizards, Sesame street, dogs, songs.

- Lizards. She gets super excited when she finds one and every time we go to the pool we spend about 15 mins looking for lizards around the area.

- Money. Coins to be exact; anytime we get coins back she asks for them and actually asks for us to place them between her toes.

- Pool. Although her usual requests for the pool has decreased due to Dora she still loves to go to the pool and play on the grounds and slides in our place.

- Airplanes. Since a recent trip to Langkawi where she got to walk to the plane to get in she is now very aware of what they are and loves them. She calls for them saying "airplane bye bye!"

Milestones

- Linking two words together. This actually started a few months back asking Daddy to go on the slide but she's getting better at it every day. In most cases she can tell us what she wants which I think it's pretty amazing.

- Words. I am very impressed by her ability to remember words especially considering she's getting them in 4 different languages. Spanish and English at home and Mandarin and Bahasa (Malaysian language) at school. Here are the ones in English and Spanish I can remember: pool, ball, agua, ice, juice, bobo, Elmo, Dora, lights, down, sit, Mama, Daddy, Emily, Miles, Hazel, Jia Jia, Aish, Rene, Nisha, Auni, backpack, map, Boots, rice, cheese, video, bubbles, hola, hello, hi, bye bye, night night, banana, apple, uvas, pulpo, octopus, lagarto, baby, money, abre, mas, more, done, pizza, uno, dos, tres, one, two, three, teeth, toes, hair, eyes, nose, knees, sunshine, airplane, shoes, piggy, paint pig, luna. These are the ones she knows how to use right but she can repeat pretty clearly most of the words we tell her.

- Understanding. She understands EVERYTHING Mami and Daddy tell her, both in English and Spanish. A lot of times, especially when we're calling her name she chooses to ignore us :)

- Self. Emily finally understands the fact that she IS Emily so when we're doing something and it's her turn she says Emily.

- Singing. This is one of my favorites and one of the ones that surprises me the most. Although she doesn't know all the words she knows the right sounds that go next or how to finish a lot of the songs we sign to her. You are my sunshine, Twinkle Twinkle, Go to sleep little baby, Estrellita, Barquito, Dora's theme song, Arroz con leche, Dormir un elefante, Bingo (both languages).

- Play pretend. She can pretend to be asleep and actually snores. Pretends to cry.

- Eating by herself, or wanting to. I'm not sure I can call this a success yet since she gets more on her than in her but she fights on every meal to be the one holding the fork. She refuses to eat from us if she doesn't have a fork on her hand. She's getting better every day though and considering how big she's getting it looks like her system is working really well.