Sorry I'm throwing all the numbers at you but that was mostly for me to remember later on. I'm pleased that she is growing and doing so well, especially in the light of Ava's recent health troubles. It's important to me that I monitor her growth rate as an indication of her good health.
Darcy's personality is blooming. She is as sweet as can be, easygoing, compliant, and sensitive. She is also shy but I am not sure if it's the separation anxiety or stranger anxiety or what but this country is going to be torture for her if she has a shy personality, as much as strangers lavish attention on babies and toddlers. Darcy is pretty much a mommy's girl, more attached to me than Ava ever was. She's definitely my little buddy.
Darcy loves her big sister. Every time Ava comes home from preschool, Darcy runs and throws her arms around Ava's waist, nearly toppling them both. Darcy loves playing with Ava. When Ava wants to play alone in her room, she'll shut the door and Darcy will grab a chair from the toddler table, drag to Ava's door, and stand on it, peering into Ava's room (the door has a etched-glass window), calling out to her.
Darcy's new favorite thing is to steal the kitchen towel (or if she finds a washcloth) and drape it over her head and face and try to walk around. It's pretty typical to wash dishes and then stand there with dripping hands, wondering where the towel went.
She loves to go places, loves to explore, loves looking at birds, cats, and dogs in the city. She visits the playground at least three days a week or goes for a walk around in the neighborhood.
Darcy loves to help with laundry. Our washing machine is a front-loader and of course our dryer is also. She helps with putting in and pulling out laundry in both machines. She also likes to destroy piles of folded laundry! She also likes to help with putting silverware away from the dishwasher and she can't see into the silverware drawer so she just reaches over and drops the silverware.
Darcy spends two days a week with a babysitter while I work on language. We call the babysitter "Teyze," which means "aunt," as a sign of respect to her age. She's about 65 or so and blind in one eye. She's accustomed to working with foreigners so she has been very easy to work with, familiar with our ways. Teyze is also a believer with such a sweet spirit and a huge servant heart. She cares for Darcy like her own and she helps around the house like folding laundry, cleaning the kitchen, straightening up. We love her, especially Darcy.
Darcy continues to grow in her sign language vocabulary. The most recent sign she learned was "help" which is a big...help, ha. She was starting to display frustration about a month ago so I started teaching her the sign for "help." It clicked and now she asks for help, reducing her fits (which are really mild, though) to almost nothing. Another new one was "hurt." She knows signs for the barnyard animals, various foods, signs related to eating, a few commands, bath, flower, light, etc. I don't know how many more she knows - I would guess she understands about 100+ signs but uses about 75. As for her verbal speech, she's saying a few words like Ava, mommy, daddy, bye-bye and makes the animal sounds. Darcy continues to "babble" with her hands when she sees all of us signing together and she will babble verbally (sounding much more like an adult than a baby) when she hears us talk verbally.
That's about all that she is doing.
(and of course, I write this post, save it in the drafts folder, forget about it for a while, return to post it, and Darcy's already 19 months old but most of what this post said still applies.)
(and of course, I write this post, save it in the drafts folder, forget about it for a while, return to post it, and Darcy's already 19 months old but most of what this post said still applies.)
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