20 months old

Allie is impressing us every day.  She's 20 months old and is talking more and more, and when we can't understand what she is saying, Selena is there to translate.  Her favorite things to do are:

• Playing with her babies. She dresses them, puts them down for naps, wraps them up in blankets, has them ride Dyna, has them stand on their head, bathes them.  Selena says that Allie is one busy mom.  
• She likes playing with Duplo Legos.  She builds towers and then places them up on the TV stand and says, "Look at that."  She is very precise in how she puts the blocks, and will take apart towers she doesn't like and redo them.  Then when she is all done, she takes them all apart and does it over again.
• She likes reading books.  Silly Sally and Baby Bear, Baby Bear are still favorites.  She also likes Bob the Builder books, The Three Little Rigs, Five Little Monkeys Sitting in A Tree among others.  She likes pointing at every single thing on the page and saying, "What's that?"  But if she disagrees with how you label something she'll correct you.  
• She likes drawing and having you draw dogs, cats, girls, shapes, and Selena for her.  After she draws something she says, "Look at that."  Then when you ask her what it is she'll say, "It's a dog" or "It's a circle" etc.  
• She's started doing puzzles.  She takes a pieces and says, "Where's it go?"  Then points to where it goes and says, "Right there."  Then puts it in, then says, "I did it." Sometimes she'll throw an "Can I do it?", "Yes I can, Bob" in there.
• When she gets really excited she runs around in circles.
• She likes eating one bite off a banana.  She likes sitting in my lap and eating my breakfast of eggs and a smoothie.
• When she spills or makes a mess she'll go into the bathroom and get some toilet paper and then go and wipe it up. 

She is very independent and gets very upset at being told what to do, or being told she can't do something, or doing something for her that she wants to do herself.  I try to remember to ask her to do things instead of tell her, and using distraction when she is doing something she shouldn't.  But if I forget, or those two techniques aren't working she pretty much screams and lays down on the ground and cries.  Fortunately these tantrums only last a minute or two.  Unfortunately she had one while she was at the child care at the Y.  They told her she couldn't go up the slide and she lost it, and I had to cut my run short.  But if you ask her nicely she usually is sweet and cooperative.  

Miraculously the last few months she can usually be counted on to take a longish nap.  She never napped more than 45 minutes to maybe an hour when she was younger and all of a sudden she started taking 1.5 - 3 hour naps.  It is also fairly dependably around 2 o'clock.  

She can count to 10, and can even count things and is starting to recognize letters.  We don't "work" on these things, she just has picked them up from reading books and from playing.