I’m a first time mother, so I do not know the growth or development standard of babies and kids, and definitely do not have any benchmark for comparison because I don’t believe in measuring kids’ growth and development since they all develop differently at their own pace. But being a first time mother, I’m already so impressed with how my 20-month old has come so far from the time he was just a newborn. This post will talk about his various areas of development thus far.
Speech and language
He’s a chatter box and often out-talks any of us. Not just in the hours that he’s awake, mind you. Even when he stirs in the wee hours of the morning asking for milk, he would sit up and talk and ask questions although he’s still sleepy! I would say that his vocab is pretty great at this age. He can count from 1 to 10, name body parts, know the names of some fruits, animals, vehicles and random things like house, ice, rain, etc.
Recently, he’s started to make short sentences when communicating with us instead of his few words here and there all stringed up. Last night when he was rolling about in bed trying to sleep, he was talking by himself and as I laid beside him, I heard him say “Uncle give boy boy apple juice”. I was so, so, so impressed! That is the longest sentence I’ve heard him say. Before, he would make simple sentences like “I want to walk”, ”Mummy, carry boy boy” and “Mummy, Papa scold boy boy”.
Musical instinct
Where musical instinct is concerned, he definitely takes after the daddy. I can’t sing for the life of me, but he’s rather good at repeating a tune. He can recognise a song just by hearing the first note of the music when it starts. At first I thought it was just a matter of him memorizing the sequence of the songs. But when we skip the songs and play them out of the normal order of the CD, he still could tell. The grandma is very impressed with this!
The last time I wrote about him singing just the last word of every verse of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Now, he’s doing the same for a couple more songs. He also impressed me by singing a full verse of Twinkle Twinle Little Star now, and also Rain Rain Go Away, Baa Baa Black Sheep and Row, Row, Row Your Boat.
Coordination
One good thing about him is that he doesn’t really climb all over the place. The most he would do is to climb up the sofa and bed. But he prefers to walk and run about rather than to climb. He also enjoys kicking and throwing balls, so I would say he’s quite coordinated by now. He also likes walking up the stairs by himself, of course we make sure he lends support from the wall as he makes his way up the steps.
He’s also learned to manage a spoon and fork in each hand, and to scoop some food and put it into this mouth with the spoon. He’s not great at doing this, still having some misses and thus messing up when he feeds himself. But we shall continue to let him do this and one day, hopefully we have less to clean up!
Association to things
He’s rather good with associating things. He remembers what he’s been taught rather well and fast, but I suppose all kids do because their brains are like sponge right now. But we’re quite happy that he’s able to recognise the same things of different shapes and sizes. For example, if we show him a picture of a camel from a book, he is able to also recognise a different camel from other sources, be it from his kiddie shows on Disney Channel or a figurine or the statues of camels we saw at Sunway Pyramid and The Curve.
He also remembers people pretty well and is able to relate to them when we talk about them. He seems to remember his experiences and time with people he’s met, and tends to “label” them according to what he experienced with them. Once, my mom’s friend met him for the first time and she gave him an ang pow. After that meeting of less than 5 minutes, he still remembers her and refers to her as Aunty Ang Pow! Speaking of ang pow, if you ask him what is in an ang pow, he would reply “money”. And if you continue to ask him “Where do you put your money?”, he would reply “Bank!”. The mother is thrilled to no end with this. Is this considered cultivating good savings habit right from the start? 
Emotional development
One thing’s for sure, he no longer is as easy going as before with strangers. Before, anyone and everyone could carry him. Now, he picks and chooses and is often wary of new people. He’s still friendly with them, and can laugh and play with strangers, but he would not allow them to carry him. Once in a while, he would agree to be carried by some new people. We have no idea what his screening test is for people who are allowed to carry him!
He’s also more attached to us now. Nowadays, I don’t know why but he would come up to us and extend his two arms and say “Hug”. Sometimes, he would also asked to be kissed and when you ask him “Kiss where?”, he would start giving you his cheek, hands and legs! It’s not as if we don’t show him enough physical affection and love, we surely do. Maybe he just wants more sometimes.
Physical development
Honestly, I didn’t really measure his physical growth until my babysitter started doing so and it put us to shame! So I bought a weighing scale recently just to check how much he weighs! He’s 11kg now. I don’t know his height though, maybe we should start to measure also. His babysitter knows more than us about his height and weight and would tell us how much weight he’s gained and how many inches he’s grown. So we better keep up and know all these little facts about our boy too!
He’s also more aware of his own body and is able to tell us when he pees or poos. But I got a feeling he’s telling us AFTER he’s done it or just seconds before he does his job. We have yet to potty train him but the babysitter did start and found it rather difficult at the moment. So he’s still 100% on diapers!
Overall, we’re very pleased and happy about his growth and development. Some people start to send their toddlers to pre-school when they turn 2. My boy is 4 months short of turning 2 years old, but I don’t think I want to pack him off just yet. I don’t know why but I feel that he’s still too young for it. Though it will be a fun time for him to start mixing with other kids and having friends his age, I still feel very protective of him to let him go. It looks like I need to undergo some development to be less paranoid!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey, good post. Toddlers nowadays never fail to impress
. After reading your post, I could roughly foresee what to expect from my little girl in 6 months time 
Especially for first time parents, we “ooh” and “ahh” at everything the first born does! I’m sure you’ll be very excited as Hayley shows all these fun traits very soon!