twenty!

Dearest J,
You're twenty months old!   Hard to believe that in four short months, you'll be TWO and also an older brother!
Every day, your daddy and I thank God for you - that He is letting us borrow you for this lifetime.  We get to watch you learn and laugh with glee, and it just fills our hearts with joy!
You're developing lots of opinions about things - and with that, your own will - but in the midst of the temper tantrums you sometimes throw, we also see your tender heart and compassion for others.  This is what we've prayed for since before you were born -that you'd be a good friend like Jonathan in the Bible...and we are so thankful to witness God's answer to prayer in your life!
We love you so much! :)


This is what you can do at 20 months (learned in the past 2 months):

• Make requests about who to pray for.  When we're praying at bedtime or before meals, you interrupt with prayer topics, like the names of people or things you love (family members and ball are the most frequent requests)
• Recognize the purpose of most household items. You like to put on Daddy's deodorant in the morning...both on him and on your arm.
• Play the number-counting app, seek and find app, and the matching game app on the iPad.
• Share your toys and food with others - you especially like distributing your food to your friends one by one.
• Show us where something belongs, or help us find something that is lost.
• Stack cans of soup from the pantry (up to 5 or 6)
• Sit in time-out for up to a minute.  You've also figured out a way to try to butter us up by giving us crinkly eyed smiles while in time-out.
• Play with puppets.  You like to kiss them repeatedly.
• Pretend your stuffed dog is a baby. You rock it in your rocking chair, give it your sippy cup, and pat its back on the bed, saying "night night..."
• Pretend cans are salt and pepper and shake them onto food.
• Do the motions to "The Wheels on the Bus" (Baby Einstein version) and wave both hands to "Twinkle twinkle."  Your favorite part is "Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky" because you like to point to the sky.
• Put on your snow boots by yourself, or try on everyone else's shoes. You can also identify whose shoes they are.
• Engage in a conversation - usually one that consists of us asking you questions; if they are yes/no questions, you always answer, "Yeah."  If they aren't a yes/no question, you make sounds in different tones like you're trying to say words and then say one word.  (For example:  Did you have fun downstairs? Yeah.  What did you do?  Uh-uh-uh-uh...ball!)
• Pretend to shiver when you feel or see something cold.
• Play hide and seek with your babysitters
• Play basketball on your hoop
• Hit the t-ball without hitting the tee.
• Close doors (from the inside of the rooms) and lock them.  (Thankfully they don't need a key to be unlocked!)

Words you now say (learned in the past 2 months):

• Downstairs
• Good job
• Sounds for animals: horse (neigh), elephant (trumpeting), 
• Bubbles
• Bible
• Blue ball, purple ball, orange ball
• Game
• Milk
• James
• Tia (Spanish for "aunt" - what you call Adriana)
• Owl
• Bear
• Hippo
• Jacket
• Bah-jee - (Korean for "pants")
• Pants
• Towel
• Animal (also used to refer to animal crackers)
• Go
• Ice
• Bed
• Pray
• Yum
• Gummy (you are my child, after all...)
• Back (as in "go back")
• Salt
• Pepper
  

Words you've recently made up to consistently mean something else:

• Ha-jee - Haraboji ("Grandpa" in Korean)
• Ha-mee - Halmoni ("Grandma" in Korean)
• Dool - school
• Dool-buh - school bus
• Garbah truh - garbage truck
• Ah-doo! - cock-a-doodle-doo (sometimes the way you refer to "rooster")
• Beh-noona - Bella noona
• Doy-noona - Joy noona
• Bekah-noona - Rebekah noona
• Oo-ah - Nooga (Korean for "Luke")
• Eep - sheep
• Eh - elephant
• Chee-ah - cheetah
• Tie - tiger
• Jer-ah - giraffe
• Peng-in- penguin
• Mello-mello - marshmallow
• Ice keem - ice cream
• Gogo - Gogurt
• Vee-oh - video
• Kib - crib
• Bah-ball - basketball
• Doe! - throw!
• Don-din! - Jonathan
• Pih-yo - pillow
• Wha-dat? - What's that?
• Dare-ih! - There it is!

Signs you now know (new ones learned in the past 2 months in italics):

• More
• Please
• All done
• Milk
• Please give it to me (in Korean)
• Thank you (sort of)
• Help (your version)
• Outside (a sign you made up yourself to consistently mean "go outside")
• School
• Refrigerator (your version)
• Table
• Play (your version)
• Drink
• Eat