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Beautiful AND Smart
First off, I struggled with what to call this post. Everything I came up with (little genius, overachiever, etc.) seemed in my mind to put too much pressure on Emily by burdening her with a title. Even what I settled on classifies as a “label”, but at least she is showing so far in life that the two “labels” above don’t have to be independent of one another.
Anyway, I was perusing BabyCenter today and this is the information the home page was providing to me for Emily:
Your 29- to 30-month-old
How your toddler’s growing: Your toddler is probably able to put on a piece or two of clothing by herself and name a few body parts. She may also be able to identify a color or a friend by name. As she grows more aware of what others are thinking and feeling, she’ll become more interested in interacting and playing with other children instead of just alongside them.
How your life is changing: Conversations with your baby are a wonderful opportunity to help build her verbal skills. For instance, if she says “Car go,” you might say, “Yes, that red car is going down the street very quickly.” She won’t be able to imitate your bigger words or complex sentences just yet, but she’s learning from your example.
Parent Tip: Toilet Training Will Come in Time “If your child isn’t toilet trained yet, don’t get upset. My son wasn’t ready until he was almost three, and then he really got into it. It might help to give him a book or video explaining the process — that was useful for us.” — Lizzie
I was struck with Emily’s progress compared with the above. Although she has been known to get dressed completely by herself, she still typically needs help getting arms into sleeves and getting socks on. Everything else she can pretty much do, and we usually allow her to help pick out her clothes in the morning as well. She has known all her colors by name and recognition for as long as I can remember (probably for about a year now) and not only does she know all her friends by name, but she tells us stories of what they all did at daycare all day! As far as building verbal skills go - the example of the car above made me laugh as it reminded me of something Emily said this morning as we were driving to daycare. There was a motorcycle in the other lane and she said, “There’s a motorcycle…it’s a yellow one…he’s wearing a helmet, he’s being safe.” I’ve always known she has been advanced in a cognitive way (they say kids typically progress faster in either cognitive or physical, but usually not both) but this example just reinforced it to me I guess. And finally the toilet training - I have to admit, I love being the parent of a child who was trained at 22 months and 100% out of diapers at 27 months. While a bit of this could be attributed to parenting I suppose, I give most of the credit to Emily, who just had the right combination of interest and determination to make it happen, plus is blessed with the ability to stay dry at night, which I know can be a struggle for some kids.
All of this rambling is just really to say that I am oh so proud of our daughter and all she continues to accomplish. I just need to make sure to not get an ego from it! And, it should be said that I would be just as proud of her if none of the above was true. I am just so thankful to be blessed with my daughter, and can’t wait to see the blessings in store with the birth of the new baby as well.