Friday, May 1, 2009

My wonderful daughter

I thought it was about time to update everyone on Calissa's doings. Her pretend play has taken a big jump in the last couple of weeks. She has discussions with her toys and stuffed animals, which is really cute. I love to see how she learns from her environment. As with most families, dinner is a time to catch up and discuss our day. Yesterday, the batteries in Calissa's music box needed replaced and at dinner she told her dad how her music had "broken". She is learning her numbers. As with most 2 year olds, she only gets the concept of one and more than one, but she is learning to recognize the numbers as symbols. She had taken her train tracks completely apart and I was putting them back together yesterday morning. Part of the track is a short spiral to a bridge. As I was putting this together, she pointed to it and said, "Look, it's a six." A couple of weeks ago her grandpa gave her a toy with the alphabet and numbers 1-10 on it. This has several modes, counting, learning the letters, associating words (horn goes with H), and spelling. I'm not real fond of the spelling because it's not something Calissa can do yet, so it gets very repetitive and you get the wrong choice noise. This is Calissa's favorite mode. Even when she gets really frustrated (she knows the wrong choice noise, and what it means), she won't let me turn it to another mode. I have a feeling she will be asking me to spell things for her soon. I have no idea how I'm going to keep up with her. We also had to put catches on her closet door and lock up all of her books at night. She started getting up after we turned off her light, getting a book, turning the light back on, and reading. So we started not just turning off the light at the wall switch, but on the lamp as well. It took her two nights to figure that out. This makes me very curious about the role genetics plays in this. I used to do the same thing, taking books to bed. I'm sure that much of this is typical toddler behaviour. The natural byproduct of a curious and active mind paired with a desire to put off sleep. We buy her lots of books, and read to her often, so I'm sure nurture is also a big part. I wonder how she can be so much like Ivan or I in some regards. Genetics has to be a part of this. She isn't emulating me. I read before bed, but she is already asleep. Or am I simply ascribing a normal behavoir to taking after a parent? For all I know, toddlers of non-reader parents do the same thing.

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