18 to 21 months: A comparison

Nadia at 18 months (12-24-2009)

1. At 21 months Nadia had 14 teeth. Ian has 8 teeth.

2. At 21 months Nadia was wearing 24 month or 2T clothing with the excption of pants (18 months). Ian is currently wearing size 18 month clothing, and there are actually some 18 month shorts that he can't wear because his waist is too small (they just fall right off of him). As for pants, he still wears size 12 months. He can wear some 24 month size shirts although the 18 month ones still fit him perfectly.

3. Nadia was perfecting her skills with using a fork and spoon to feed herself. We're still working on getting Ian to eat pureed food that I feed him by spoon. A fork has never entered his mouth. Of course Nadia never had to deal with eosinophilic esophagitis or reflux.

4. Nadia was very friendly at this age with waving and saying "hi" and "bye bye" to strangers at the grocery store and such. Ian doesn't interact with strangers At All.

5. Nadia was perfectly content to walk around the house barefoot. Ian wants to have his shoes on all the time. He also is more interested in dressing up than she was at this age. He loves wearing hats for example.

Ian at 18 months (6-12-11)

6. At this age we were impressed with Nadia's memory and also her sense of humor. Ian's language isn't developed enough yet for us to be aware of his sense of humor.

7. Nadia could identify several colors at 21 months old. I am not aware that Ian knows any of his colors yet, but he can count to five!

8. Ian took off during this time period in terms of his vocabulary. His expressive vocabulary was about 100 words at 21 months. Nadia's was over 200 words at 20 months. Nadia was already speaking in sentences at this stage. Ian has said a couple of two word combinations (like "shoe on"), but usually he just says one word at a time.

Nadia at 21 months (3-24-10)

9. Both kids went to bed between 7:45-8:00pm at this age. Although Nadia occasionally slept until 7:30am, it was pretty rare for her. She usually got up between 6:00-6:30. By 21 months old Ian was sleeping until at least 7:00am and sometimes as late as 8:00am.

10. Both kids went down for their (one) nap sometime between 12pm and 1pm when they were this age. Nadia's nap was 90 minutes to 3 hours long. Ian's is typically 15-25 minutes long.

11. Nadia could do simple puzzles at this age and engaged in imaginary play. Ian hasn't gotten into either of those yet. He spends more time looking at books and playing independently than Nadia did at this age. He also shows far more interest in vehicles than she ever did.

12. Ian is a boy on the GO. He just wants to run, run, run (far more than Nadia did at this age). He also throws, hits, and kicks a lot more than she ever did. We're working on that!

13. During this time span Ian had speech therapy and occupational therapy once a week, saw a psychologist, allergist, GI doctor, and urologist, and was under general anesthesia 3 times in the last 4 months. Nadia has never been seen by any of those medical professionals or ever been under anesthesia.

14. Nadia sucked her thumb for comfort whereas Ian soothes himself by touching his belly button. In the church nursery he has gotten other kids interested in belly buttons also, lol.

15. Nadia was in the "me do it" stage during this time span. She'd say her name as her way of saying she wanted to do it on her own. Ian hasn't shown any interest in doing things independently yet.

16. Both kids threw lots of tantrums during this age span, loved hugs, and brought us incredible joy!