somewhat random Elena development notes

One of Elena's Christmas gifts was a new pre-K workbook. She really enjoys doing workbooks. At this point, she particularly likes tracing letters. She knows the sounds of some letters, but by no means most of them (I regularly hear her giving the sounds for O, T, C, and K. She's less consistent with P, Q, and A). She doesn't seem receptive to sounding out whole words, even when they consist of letters she's comfortable with. I'm sure it'll come, though.

She's getting better at identifying written numbers. She's been enjoying workbook activities that involve drawing a line from a number to a group of that number of items.

For the next workbook, though, we'll probably get one with tear-out pages and laminate them so that she can use an erasable marker and do them over and over (and we can save them for future kids...).

And while I'm thinking on this rather dry post which serves much as an internal family memo as to her schooling, she also traces out letters in sand. She's really into writing. She will spontaneously get something to write with and write out a bunch of the same letter (usually "o" or "t") and then show it to one of us, saying "I'm writing /t/'s!" (In general, we have her use the letter sounds rather than names to encourage the phoneme-grapheme connection.) She also pretends to write in cursive rather frequently.

Other developmental notes:

She seems to be past the abject defiance kick she was on for a while (Erich wrote about some of his struggles with this). She still gets time-outs, but they don't seem to be anywhere near as frequent, or as long.

That post a while ago where I wrote that she seemed to be weaning herself? Well, she hasn't nursed since before that post. She got to the point of spacing out nursing to over a week, then she just... stopped. And that was that. Like it was a complete non-issue. She never asks about it.

Her vocabulary is, of course, expanding at an immeasurable rate. But lately I've noticed a bloom in her social-nicety words. For example: Today I came home sick from work. She heard me come to the front door. When she saw me through the glass, she said, "Oh, hi!" Then she opened the door for me and said, "Come in!" She also does a lot more of "Would you like...?" and "May I please...?" without any prompting.

She has taken quite quickly to my brother, who's home from London for the holidays. He makes up lots of songs for her. He'll play his guitar and make up lyrics as she throws out things to sing about. She also imitates him by making up short songs of her own with silly lyrics.

She still has a broad pallet; she eats whatever we eat, and we eat a large variety of things. She does not prefer hotdogs and mac'n'cheese to sushi and vegetables. She generally wants to be eating whatever anyone else is eating--it encourages us to keep healthy habits. So when my father is eating eggs, she wants eggs (and eats them with gusto). When I'm eating shredded wheat with soy milk, that's what she'll have, too.

Tonight, she's going to a new years party with my parents. I'm sure she'll love it. Don't worry, they'll bring her home well before midnight. They're very attentive grandparents who can tell when she's getting tired.

Animal Sounds

Elena has informed us that dogs say "woof woof" and cats say "meow" and birds say "step up."

"Step up"? Birds say "step up"? Well, they do here. My parents have a parrot, and this is one of her favourite things to say--She says it when she wants to step up onto someone's hand. It is interesting to me that this has coloured Elena's perception of the sounds that birds in general make.

Elena has lots of questions...

We arrived at church Sunday morning, and Erich and I dashed off inside while my mother helped Elena get out of the car.

ER: Where Papa and Mama going?
Nonna: They're going inside so that they can sing.
ER: Why they're singing?
Nonna: Because they love God.
ER: I love God, too! I sing Holy God, Holy Mighty...

And she does. She sings along a lot in church. Sometimes, she even hums along in the byzantine tones when she doesn't know the words. But she still doesn't want to sing with the children's choir...

Some things are so simple to a 2 year old

ER: I'm married
Me: You're married??
ER: Yes, I'm married.
Me: You're not married. You don't have a husband.
ER: I'll go early in the morning to the store and get a husband and then I'll be married. When I get a husband I'll get married! When I get a husband at the store I usually get a husband. And then I'll be married!

Vanity

ER: I'm gorgeous
ER: I'm gorgeous I'm gorgeous I'm gorgeous!
Me: Who told you that?
ER: Nonna
ER: I'm gorgeous!
Me: Yeah, but don't let it go to your head.