I am only just finally starting to realize that Norah will be turning 2 soon. I don’t like to think about it–we have all loved this year so much, I just want to hang onto the last bits of her babyhood. But she’s not a baby anymore…she is truly a little girl now.

I was remembering today how, just in time for her 18-month doctor’s appointment, I had made a list in the baby book of the words she knew. I counted just over a hundred, and was proud and amazed–and so was the doctor when I told him. And now, just 4 months later, she is beginning to speak in sentences. I couldn’t possibly count the words she knows. She can recognize and name hydrangeas–and pronounce it properly, too. She’s been making herself perfectly clear for months now…but in the last few weeks she has started coming out with perfect little sentences that leave us all gaping. A few of the most recent:

“I would like a spoon please.”

“The boy was driving the train at the train table.”

“There is a squirrel under my mask.” (Don’t ask; I have no idea.)

“Just read the book.” (This because I asked her if she knew any of the letters in the book’s title. She is a spitfire, that one.)

She can also recite the entire alphabet, with the exception of D and E. Which, who needs them? Tonight while I was making dinner, she stood at the refrigerator for the longest time, meticulously arranging her letter magnets in precise rows, and singing the alphabet song to herself. I realized she was “spelling words,” just like Mommy and Daddy do with the letters.

We have been going to storytime at the children’s bookstore–we both enjoy it, and I think it’s a good first warm-up for preschool: the sitting still for the story, and then the craft afterward. It’s really the first structured activity she’s done. And last week I was so proud when, instead of sitting on my lap, for the first time she sat on the little bench, all by herself, hands folded in her lap, listening intently to the story. My shy little girl, so independent! That is, until she shifted and fell backward off the bench, landing half on her shoulder and half on her head. Poor thing. We missed the rest of that story. But after Miss Barb gave her a sticker and let her help set up the balloon game, she rallied and we had a good time.