20 Months: Developmental Update

Speech
Beckett is busting out with new words all the time. Theo tends to wait until he's totally mastered a word, then says it to me for the first time. Example: the first time he said "num-nums" it was the most perfectly articulated word I'd heard. Theo also says Mama, Dada, Gaga (Grandpa or Grandma), mail, mailman, milk, bear, bang, boom, more, milk, dog, cat, and a myriad of animal sounds. Beck says boom, bang, star, go, car, excavator, bear, accident, milk, more, num-nums, buh-bye, Mama, Dada, Gaga, cup, cat, lawn mower, sock, ant, apple, and probably some others I'm forgetting. It seems like they are in the midst of  a vocab explosion and it sometimes takes me aback when they bust out with a new word I've never heard.

Motor Skills
Theo continues to be more of a physical risktaker, and Beckett continues to be a little clutzy. He still falls over from a standing or walking position at least once a day. (Hence the learning of the terms "boom" and "bang.") They have just started using their Ybikes a little more all the time, though I actually have them hidden for the next week or two as part of my toy rotation. Beck especially is very interested in rolling trucks, cars, and construction equipment on any surface while saying "vroom." Theo likes to figure out how things work, and likes to push buttons, so he is often found sitting in one place pressing every button on the phone or a remote, or examining the wires in the back of the TV and assorted accoutrements.

Sleep
After a wretched weekend while Daddy Lovebo was in Philadelphia for his Temple program, this week the boys have much improved their sleeping. Since they seem to be more lively in the evening now, and like to run around and play for a while before bed, I have been putting them to bed closer to 8pm now. Every other night they seem to sleep from 8-6, straight through with no wakeups. Sometimes they still wake up closer to 4 or 5, nurse and then go back to sleep. On the mornings they sleep straight til 6am, they will often go back to sleep after nursing, which gives us another half hour or hour of sleep (or a head start on the morning if we're both going to work). This is much more reasonable and though we still don't know why they do what they do when they do it, I feel good about letting them find their own rhythm and knowing when it was time to sleep more consecutive hours of sleep. They are also pretty consistently napping 2-3 or sometimes 4 hours in the afternoon. When I'm with them I put them down around 1:15  and they sleep til at least 3:30 and often closer to 4 or 4:30, sometimes 5pm. When my parents and Mindy are here, I think they are usually put down earlier, closer to 12 or 12:30, and they sleep for two or three hours. They are still a little crankier in the late afternoon/early evening than they are in the morning--more fighting over toys, more whining--but overall they are in really good spirits most of the time.