Little Miss Chatterboxes at 21 and 14 months

Nat is a regular Little Miss Chatterbox at 21 months, and Gigi can say quite a number of words.

This past month, we had to contend with Nat's hospitalisation but I'm happy to say she's back to normal and recovered well. She lost about half a kg, but is starting to put it on back.

Recently, she's started counting 1, 2, 3, 4 and can say ABCD. However when we sing the alphabet halfway and stop at certain letters, she knows which ones to fill in the blank. The same goes with nursery rhymes, we'll sing halfway and she'll complete the last word for each line. And she can finish practically any rhyme in the 4-book set she has of over 20 songs.

She's also a little parrot, she'll repeat practically everything we say now although some of it makes no sense! 'Christmas tree' sounds like 'key key key', and sometimes it takes a while to decipher what she means. She says bye to everything too, like when I pointed out a cockroach on the ground, she went 'Bye bye cockroach' and blew it a flying kiss. Point to any other insects and she'll say, "Bite Nat-nat'.

She's started to assert herself more when she doesn't want to eat something or do something, saying, 'No, don't want'. But she knows 'please' is the magic word and will say thank you most of the time when handed something. We made allowances for food and drink with more flavour when she was sick but she refused most of them, probably because she wasn't in the mood to try anything new. However of late, she's discovered grape Yakult and since it's good bacteria I let her drink half of mine when I have one.

This week she made her first deposit on the toilet bowl, when she said she wanted to 'poo-poo'. She didn't like sitting on the potty, and prefers sitting directly on the toilet bowl. And right after Arlyn washed her bum, she said "Thank you!". So cute!

She's getting really attached to Nick, whenever he's around she would say 'Daddy feed', or 'Daddy pat-pat'. She's on a first name basis with me though, there was one day she banged on my door calling for 'Mita', Mita' whilst I was changing.

Mummy has been teaching her who stays where. Ask her who stays at Sengkang and she'll answer 'Uncle Ben, Aunty Dy'. She knows Mama Ivy stays at Ang Mo Kio, and Aunty Nana at Membina and Nat-Nat at 106 Spottiswoode.

Most nights she'll kiss my tummy cos' she knows baby is in there. She's still scared of strangers and crowds but she's inconsistent in the sense that she'll wave and say 'hi' to people in the lift or make funny faces at the pew behind us in church but bring her to a wedding dinner or party and she'll wail.

She picks out my outfits for work sometimes, when I throw open my cupboard and ask her what I should wear. She enjoys the girly things, like putting on my sunglasses, carrying my bags and wearing my shoes, and when I wear a necklace she'll go, "Niiiiiice" and want to try it on, but she also loves to throw paper planes and kick a ball around with her daddy.



She's a budding photographer, always rotating a phone to pretend to take a picture and she'll hold the phone or camera to her eye and say, "Smile!" Her curls are unruly but I have no heart to cut them off, though I have trimmed a little as she has a new habit of sucking on her hair.



She's getting quite independent, putting some clothes on by herself and putting on and removing her shoes.

Gigi's vocabulary has expanded to include 'mabuk', 'daddy' and a few other words. At 14 months, there is still no sign of teeth, though you can see the outline of the bottom two through the gums but they have yet to erupt. Even Ananya has teeth already!

She can be quite independent putting herself to sleep at night by just laying on the pillow and drifting off while listening to adult conversation. We didn't see much of her this month because we kept the babies apart to minimise the spread of the stomach flu, but she still got it anyway. She somehow likes to empty Nat's toy basket and put it over her head and walk around the room. I am reminded of a mushroom when she does this!