30 month update - Part 2

Her imagination has grown immensely over the last few months. I can't even explain the things she comes up with. The deck turns into a forest filled with wild animals, she builds sand castles in the bathtub, she catches fairies flying in the air. Sometimes she'll come up with something and you wonder what the heck she's talking about until you realize she's just pretending. She loves to have conversations between her dolls, her animals, her spoon and fork, her hands, even her shoelaces have been known to have conversations with each other. She is quite the storyteller.

Every morning I have to ask her who she is. Sometimes she's Ariel, sometimes Tinkerbell, sometimes a robot, sometimes a cat...you just never know. And she gets upset if you don't play along. This will last all day long and the next morning she'll wake up as someone/something else.

She's quite the manipulator. She totally knows how to work mom and dad. She knows that mom is more of the disciplinarian and dad will give in a lot easier. If I say no to something she wants, she just turns to dad. If she comes across something that she already knows I will say no to, she asks me to go into the other room or to go over there so she can ask dad. This happens at the mall all the time. There are candy machines and as soon as she spots one, she'll tell me to "go over there," pointing to the other side of the mall, and then she'll ask daddy for candy because she knows I'll say no. And when she needs to pull out the big guns to get what she wants, she has the cutest puppy dog look complete with "pretty please" and "I love you soooo much." Who can say no to that?!

I couldn't even begin to write about all the things she's learned in the last 6 months. I think she's ready to start kindergarten! Her more recent thing is practicing her phonics. She's known the sounds the letters make for probably a year now, but she's just starting to relate that to actual words. One of her favorite games is for you to say a word and she'll tell you what letter it starts with. She also likes to play the game backwards. Name a letter and she'll come up with a list of words that start with that letter. She can also completely sound out (spell) small 2-3 letter words. And she can sight-read probably a dozen words.

Her drawing/writing is getting better. She is starting to be able to write letters and she is getting excellent at making smiley faces and specific shapes. She doesn't love coloring so she doesn't get to practice often. Actually, much to my dismay she's not much into art projects of any kind these days. Her easel and finger paints have been gathering dust, and she never participates in the art projects her teachers organize for her at school. Maybe that will change, or maybe not. And that's ok too.

Had I written this even a month ago, I would have said we were just sailing through the "terrible two's" without incident. But just recently things seems to have shifted and she's been showing her two side more frequently. While actual temper tantrums are rare, she's developing quite an attitude. With that comes a lot more disobedience and defiance than we've experienced before. Previous to the last few weeks, a simple "No" would suffice if she was doing something wrong. We really had no discipline strategies as we just didn't need them. But...like I said things have changed slightly and she has recently experienced her first time-outs. I was actually quite surprised at how effective they were. She's only had to have a few of them, now usually just the threat of a time-out is enough to get her to behave.

I know I've said this at every age, but it's true every time...this is my favorite age! It's a blessing to be able to help teach her the ins and outs of life. She's growing into her own little person, one that I love more and more everyday. There is really no way to accurately describe my feelings for this little girl. This has been the best 2 1/2 years of my life.