Version 2.5 update

[cahn]

-Version 2.5 of the kiddo has developed a controlling and OCD-ish streak. She's run with my parental tendencies towards trying to get her to do things independently (this was not part of my parents' philosophy at all, and I imagine is part of the usual don't-want-to-do-things-like-one's-parents phenomenon) to somewhat alarming but rather humorous extremes. For example, one of the ways I can get her to do just about anything is to say, "You'd better do X... otherwise Mommy will do it!" For another example... I can only get to the "otherwise" part of that statement, and she has to say "Mommy will do it, yaah"; if I try to finish the sentence myself, she throws a fit.

-The most exciting thing in this half-year in general is that E has been toilet-trained for a month. This was especially awesome because -- although she's been toilet-trained for our home toilet for several months now -- something clicked and she figured out how to use non-home toilets literally less than a week before our Big Trip, thus saving me from a LOT of grief during that trip. (As far as we know, airplane toilets are still beyond her, though.) (K, if you're reading this, it would not have happened without your tips and your portable potty seat rec!) Unfortunately, lately she has become sloppy at home, I suspect because she knows that when she does she can change clothes. (Which she really likes. Sometimes I wonder if she is any biological child of mine. Then she starts saying she's tired when she's clearly hungry and I know she's my bio kid.)

-The most exciting thing to me, being the sort of obsessive person I am, is that E has started to sing semi-recognizable pitches and can sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on something that is, hmm, how shall I say this, locally on pitch? That is, any given four-pitch phrase is somewhat recognizable, although between phrases it is prone to dramatically change key. (She has a couple of times managed to sing most of it in the same key, although she almost always does something weird to the last couple of phrases.) She also likes to "sing" a couple of other songs that I cannot discern much pitch to at all, if any, alas, and a couple that are starting to obtain semi-recognizable pitches. She also has a favorite instrument: the bassoon. I think it is because she likes to say "bassoon," and because the bassoon is a lovely orange-ish color, as she does not actually appear to want to listen to a basson playing (although every time we listen to music, she is hopeful that perhaps we are listening to a bassoon, even though we pretty much never are). She's started trying to identify instruments when we listen to music, although she appears to use the "whatever-Mommy-said-the-instrument-was-that-we-last-listened-to-or-maybe-it's-a-bassoon" algorithm.

-It's really interesting to watch E's language development. In terms of natural verbal speech, E is getting blown away by the kids we know who have older siblings, and we're still working on the concept of the first and second person pronoun (most of her age-mates seem to have this sorted; she's starting to). She plays games with verbalization -- for example, the other day she informed me, "Bow bow bow the boat bently bown the beam!" -- that i haven't seen other kids her age do, although this may well be because I'm not their parent. (I was shocked, SHOCKED, when the head of her daycare asked me if she talked at home, because she was a little worried she never heard her talk at daycare. Because E talks constantly at home!) Also, E actually read a whole book to me last week. The book only had, like, ten words on a page, many of which were repeated, but she did read them all (like, I'm reasonably convinced that the words on the page informed her verbalization), including sounding out a couple of words that she didn't know instantly (so it's not all memorization, although I imagine much of it is memorization). She even sounds out consonant combinations (e.g., she knows the sound "th" makes) although vowels rather stump her unless they're in their simplest form. ...This indeed has a bragging component, though certainly with a healthy dose of this-doesn't-actually-mean-anything; D (whom E takes after to an alarming degree) was a similarly early reader, and by the time he was in college had become the sort of person who arranged his college career such that he did not have to write a single paper. (I am still kind of in awe that he was able to do that.)

-A couple of months ago we went to this birthday party at the zoo, featuring kids aged 1.5 to 4, and, well, let's say that a couple of kids are standing on chairs looking out at something. (An elephant, as it happened.) Now a third kid comes along. What will that third kid do? If you answered, "Get up on the chair too to see what they're looking at, or possibly just to hang out with them," you'd be right... because all the kids did this... except for E. E tended to wander off in another direction entirely. I'd always wondered how childcare providers managed large numbers of children because I was kept busy with keeping up with just the one, and now I know: they don't have large numbers of kids like E -- all the other parents were chatting in the secure knowledge that their kids were mostly hanging out in the same area, whereas I was continually having to chase after E. (Her daycare teacher has also noticed this...) This is another case of E basically being a carbon copy of her dad, who I am absolutely sure did this when he was the same age, given his poorly-disguised adult tendencies for same. However, she's getting better -- just this week her little friend came to visit and they actually interacted, which was... different, and kind of awesome.

-Inferencing is happening! When we go on family bike rides with E in the bike trailer, we usually go to the beach. D took a bike ride by himself, and when I informed E of this, she said, "Daddy go to ocean!"

-D reminds me that she has just learned how to use the paint can in Microsoft Paint. This also reminds me that last week she, overnight, decided that in addition to orange, she also likes green. (Orange has been her favorite color since far before most kids have any color preference...)

Comments

[thistleingrey]

although she appears to use the "whatever-Mommy-said-the-instrument-was-that-we-last-listened-to-or-maybe-it's-a-bassoon" algorithm

:)) heeeeee.

We have "Twinkle Twinkle" now admixed with "Baa baa Black Sheep" and "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", something like this: dinkle dinkle little shar, marly marly marly, baa baa back sheep, yes shir yes shir eee back fou, how i wanda shar. She truncates lines, too, obviously.... Does E stay on key better when singing together with someone? We've been playing with this a bit, and Reason corrects herself (though still pretty imperfectly) when darkforge or I sing or hum with her.

How long has E been going to daycare? Is it recent enough to count as a residually unfamiliar place, or has it been months? Reason speaks voluminously at home (relatively speaking) and almost not at all in strange situations. The pediatrician has had to take my reports of words and phrases on faith, since she's heard only sad requests to be picked up at the end of the appointment, and Reason said almost nothing for over an hour when meeting your friend.... At daycare Reason seems to consider herself a greeter who says hello to all the other parents and addresses them by name. No idea where that came from.

Thanks for the potty seat rec, btw. It seems very convenient but doesn't fit well on our toilet at home (user error?), so I will have to find out later whether she's willing to use it elsewhere. Or perhaps we'll be able to work up to it at home when she's a little taller (in May, at 18 mo, she was 34") and when sitting atop the real toilet doesn't seem so scary. We began proceedings today, more or less successfully. Looks like we'll be splitting daytime habits from nighttime ones, too, for a little while.

[ecaterin]

I'd always wondered how childcare providers managed large numbers of children because I was kept busy with keeping up with just the one, and now I know: they don't have large numbers of kids like E -- all the other parents were chatting in the secure knowledge that their kids were mostly hanging out in the same area, whereas I was continually having to chase after E.

Bwaaaa ha ha ha ha ha!!! My oldest was like this (he's almost 15yo) - ultimately he's the one responsible for the fact that I teach Positive Discipline, because I needed 99 strategies to help him for every 5 strategies I need to help *other* parents :D

Let me tell you though - everyone jokes that at least your child-with-a-will-of-adamant will not succumb to peer pressure in adolescence, right? Well it's completely true :P Dakota does what he thinks is right and doesn't give a damn about what his peers think - and since for the most part he's got his head screwed on straight from years of careful emotional intelligence teaching....this works out well :D So hang in there!