Today Claire is 21 months old. She sparkles more by the day.

Claire has a fuzzy sheep toy she was given at Christmas. Until recently he was benignly ignored, but he has become popular enough to be requested in bed. The other morning when I went to get her from the crib, she hugged him and said, “His name is Baa.” And so she has named her first toy. (All the other toys with names are ones we have bestowed and she has used, but this is the first toy she has named herself.)

She has acute hearing. One of the most frequent words we hear daily is “noise.” This is her way of commenting that she hears a sound and a request from us to identify it. Many times a day we have such exchanges:

Claire: Noise.
Me: That’s a motorcycle.
Claire: Moto-cycle.
—
Claire: Noise.
Me: That’s an ambulance siren.
Claire: Goes so fast!
Me: Yes, an ambulance goes fast.
—
And so on, perhaps 30 times a day, for car horns, people shouting, phones ringing, car stereos thumping, etc.

Claire has always been fairly passive regarding possessions. If she is playing with a toy and another child yanks it from her grasp, she lets it go. She’s not always happy about it, but she has never yanked it back or been aggressive. It concerns me a little; the world is full of grabby people, and I wonder how she will become assertive. Also, if there is something being given by an adult, such as stamps on the hand after class, and there is a crowd of kids, she will hang back. She wants to get the stamp but will wait until everyone else has gotten theirs. Even if she gets to the teacher first, if another child approaches, she moves away. In the pet store the other day she wanted to look at fish. A little boy toddled up next to her to look in the same aquarium, and she moved away. Wherever she went, he followed (the boy was curious and friendly), and she kept moving; she could not get the chance to look alone. I’m not sure what to make of this. It’s probably best if I make no conclusions.

Anyway, we have a book by Karen Katz she has read for many months called I Can Share. It features scenarios where little kids have something another wants, and the child who has it says, “MY [doll, shovel, snack] you can’t have it, but maybe…” and on the next page is says “You can play this this doll”; or “We can make a castle together;” or “I’ll give you a box of your own.” After several scenes like this, the book ends with, “Now I know how to share, and I like it!” and shows two kids sharing crayons.

While compromise may not seem like sharing, what I have learned is that at this age it’s important for a child to feel secure in possessing an object before she will share willingly. To be able to say, “I’m using this, but you can play with that toy, and when I’m done I’ll give it to you,” is important. But that’s not my point here. All this has been background providing context for this: when someone takes a toy from Claire these days, she says, “I can’t share! I can’t share!” This is her way of telling the child to give it back and alerting the adults she’s upset. She has bypassed the physical aggression stage to using her words. Way to go!

Speaking of words, the sentences become fuller and more complex all the time, and her vocabulary grows. For some reason, certain words strike her as hilarious. The most recent ones that make her laugh are sprout and underpants.

Today I announced we were going to Target to shop. I said to Claire, “Mommy needs to buy some new underpants.” And Claire said, “I want underpants too!” So I bought her a set of little girl undies, not that she’s anywhere near ready to use them or be potty trained. (I also bought a package of Pull-ups, which is what we will start using when potty training commences.) However, she was very happy to have her very own underpants. I told her she was growing to be a big girl, and when she felt ready to tell me about needing to use the potty she would be ready to wear those.

Given how these 21 months has zoomed by, that will come soon enough.