September 1, 2010 - Posted by Molly - Comments Off
Morgan had been wearing my flip-flops last night before bed and she wanted to put them back in our room before she got into her crib. Fine. So she carried them toward our bedroom. But when she got about 5 feet from the door, she put them down quickly, never taking her eyes from the bedroom door, and then turned and ran back to me (I was standing by her door waiting). There was obvious fear in her face as she was running down the hall. She was definitely afraid of the darkness in our room. So we walked back holding hands, turned on some lights, and checked it all out. No problems. But I’ve really never seen her obviously ‘scared’ before.
Quite a few of the older kids in her classroom have recently moved up to the preschool room (which you do at about 33 months). As a result there is a dearth of kids who are in the middle of potty-training. So they are going to move Morgan on to that stage and start working with her. Best I can tell, this involves more frequent trips to the bathroom, more discussion of big girl underwear, more discussion of keeping diapers dry, etc..
Morgan has started repeating EVERYTHING! The other morning we were talking about a new kid in her class, Lawrence A. And she said “no hitting Lawrence A.” And I said “Did Lawrence hit you?” Her: “Nooooo.” Me: “Did you hit Lawrence?” Her: “Yessssss.” Me: some discussion of how it isn’t nice to hit people. Her: “No hitting Clara D.! No hitting John W.!” Me, in my head: are we talking ‘no hitting Clara’ or ‘no hitting, Clara’? That is, is she repeating something that was said to her or is she repeating something she overheard a teacher say to someone else? At any rate, I asked the teachers and they said there haven’t been any problems.
Morgan now says “no, thank you” when she doesn’t want something. It is incredibly cute. And she knows it. So sometimes, if she doesn’t get the accolades she wants for having said ‘no, thank you,’ she will stop to inform you that she did just in fact say ‘no, thank you.’
“do you want a pear?”
“No, thank you.”
“Okay.”
“I said ‘no, thank you.”
“Yes you did, good job. That was very polite. I appreciate it.”
Yesterday we were looking at a picture of an elephant and I was talking about the elephant’s trunk. Morgan ran to the window of her bedroom and pointed out the window and said “Morgan’s trunk!” I was confused. I went and looked out the window. She was pointing at the car. Which does indeed have a trunk. And she does consider it hers.
She can very nearly sing the entire ABC song by herself, including the little end bit about ‘now I’ve sung my ABCs…”
And she will practically lead me through a retelling of Curious George Takes a Train from memory (ie, while we are driving in the car and the book is in her bedroom). “Come back son, that’s not our train!” “it was too late.” “boy crying.” “boy all done crying” “clapped and cheered” “george a hero!”
You gotta stay sharp to keep up with her these days.
She asked to go under water today. We explained (a lot) how she’d have to hold her breath. She tried, but the timing wasn’t always perfect.
After seeing older kids do it a couple weeks ago, she’s also loving jumping into the pool. At the beginning she didn’t really understand how to jump, but she’s getting better. The videos with me (Jim) are from over two weeks ago, while the video with Molly is from today. She actually even did quite a bit better at jumping than is apparent in the Molly video.
Morgan can now hold herself up on a real swing (as opposed to the bucket swings) while you gently push her back and forth.
She got some insect flash cards today from one of the kids in her class. On the way home from school she kept holding them up and saying ‘what’s that daddy?’ And he’d say ‘spider,’ or ‘beetle,’ or whatever. And she’d respond with “Good job Daddy.” hee!
I forgot to add one of her more surprising bits of knowledge.
She has a alphabet puzzle that Grandma and Grandpa Dahl gave her. Each letter has a picture underneath it (you pick up the Q, you see a quail). Her new game is to take all of the puzzle pieces and place them, one by one, on the matching letter (in the center, facing the same way) on her big alphabet mat on the floor. And woe to the person who tries to walk on the mat while she is doing this. When placing a piece herself, she carefully plots routes that won’t disturb already placed pieces. And she’ll walk carefully if she has to tread near a piece in place.
This mat also has the numbers zero through 9 at the bottom. The other day she was walking by the zero and she said ‘zero. nothing.’ I was impressed. Zero seems like a pretty tricky concept. But they do have counting/sorting work at school, where you place the appropriate number of ladybugs or sticks in the bin with a number on the bottom. So in the bin with a zero on the bottom, you wouldn’t put anything in. In the next bin with a 1 on the bottom, you’d put in one ladybug. And so on.
Morgan can sing along to the ABCs song and will insert the next letter when you stall somewhere. She doesn’t sing it by herself from start to finish. But she will ask you for help singing it when she wants to sing….”Mommy help, ABCs” is a common request. (So is “Mommy help, Happy Birthday Stevie,” “Mommy help, Happy Birthday Stevie’s Mommy” (I have no idea where that come from), and “Mommy help, Happy Birthday Morgan”)
Morgan can count to 11 quickly and easily by herself. (And she is counting things that she is pointing to, not just reciting numbers). Usually after 11 she resets to 8.
She thinks about the stories we read her even when we aren’t reading (and haven’t been reading them in awhile). Her favorite story these days is Curious George Takes a Train (the first story in the Treasury of Curious George book John gave her). Occasionally she’ll break out with a ‘get down George!’ (George gets into trouble for messing with the departure board at a train station and the trainmaster yells at him. It is easy for a monkey to get into trouble. Also easy for a monkey to get out of trouble. And by the end of the story George is a hero). She’ll also say ‘easy trouble monkey’ and ‘George hero!’
She has moved on to 6 word sentences. And she narrates the drive home. “People walking. I hear noise. Beep beep! Help Mommy, ABCs!”
Morgan turned 2! The 2-year checkup went well, Morgan didn’t even cry for the first shot.
Weight: 25lbs 6oz (35%)
Height: 35 3/4″ (90%)
Grandparents Dahl were in town for her birthday, and she had a reasonably familiar gala: Trip to the Baltimore Aquarium, cake (nothing with nuts!) at home, opening some gifts, and a trip to George’s. Also another birthday at school, this time in a much bigger class of two-year-olds, so everyone was able to participate in the party. She’s been saying “Morgan’s Birthday” ever since, so I think she’ll be on to us next year.
