Friday, July 01, 2011

44 months


Playmobil having dinner with the pig in the dollhouse


It's a few days earlier, but she has had a big cognitive leap this month in a couple of stages. The difference from the beginning of the month to the end of the month is large! She has learned to use my computer mouse (the kind with the little button in the middle of the keypad and the click keys elsewhere) and get on her own Starfall game from an open browser using the star icon in my bookmarks toolbar. She plays all the games on there mostly without help and closes it back up when she is done. I am very impressed by that. She can also open the front door much better, the refrigerator and freezer using a chair for the freezer, and can poor a half-gallon of milk by herself although of course, with supervision as it gets away from her.

She can put on her pants when sitting down on a bench, but still needs help with it. She can balance on the big potty even though she is not yet tall enough for her feet to hit the ground. She takes off her pants completely but holds her long dress skirts up with one hand and balances... which is pretty impressive to me as well especially because she figured it out herself. She got her own popsicle out of the freezer once as a reward! While I was washing my hair earlier she came down to the bathroom and said she needed to pee - wasn't wearing a diaper and wouldn't come downstairs with me because she was playing a game. She was not wet. She did what she needed to do. I helped her put on her pants and she went back upstairs and went back to play.

She is also talking in a much more complex way, and I feel more comfortable using different and 'odd' words around her and explaining what they mean to her. She actually listens to the explanations instead of demanding I use the words she is used to. That is a big leap for her. She allows me to call her 'child' and 'slowpoke' and 'little monkey' and other things when she used to demand loudly 'I am not a *adjective*, I am the ESME, I am the little girl!' etc... She wants to know why I said that word instead and then may accept or deny it after talking about it. She told me 'no mirror, that a window' one night, and I told her it was a reflection, like a mirror, see yourself in it like a mirror - and she has been using the word reflection now. She told Pollywog kitten she was 'really soft kitten' today. She told a bubble it was a 'really dead bubble' in the bathtub. Both of those are putting together more than she usually has in the past. She is also actually listening to choices given instead of saying yes or no on tone of voice or saying yes or no to just the first thing she hears. She asks us 'what do we think' about things and also says 'I'm thinking.. I'm thinking about colors...' while pacing with her hands behind her back. Then she says 'I know! A lollipop.. a purple and a green lollipop!' The 'wow, that's really cool' vibe continues. I am holding my urge to giggle when I hear that much better than before!

Her imaginary play has catapulted into the weird and the wonderful. Things go to the moon, they make food, they do laundry etc.. Sometimes aliens or dragons or dinosaurs come, or things fall down, or other animals misbehave and she puts them 'in line.' Her playmobil grandparents just had dinner with a pig and a dog that were allowed on the table, then they weren't, then she gave in and gave the pig some pie again. They stopped to do laundry and wear imaginary crowns and dance around. They told the pig and dog to go to bed in another room and be quiet because they were oinking and woofing at each other trying to look at moons and read books and look in 'junks' (treasure chests). They went downstairs and did dishes and fed a dragon monster that was at first not allowed in the house and then they gave it a place it could look at moons and read books and go to sleep with his cereal bowl. I love it.

new words in the past few hours I've perked my ears at: stay, leave and left, soft, love/like used much more and differently before, child, grow and garden used daily, want to have, don't want to have, alive/dead for things existing when she thought they were gone and things that won't move when she thinks they should, laundry, wash/make dishes, make food / sandwiches/ fish sticks etc... lunchtime, dinner I am hearing a lot of 'it is *adjective or activity* day' Come - it is blocks day, play blocks.


Dollhouse and a kitty



Petting the cat, she is 'really soft'
Pollywog the kitten likes Esme!

1 comment:

ElizabethEK said...

The use of the mouse is quite an achievement! Wow! Also, impressive that she can hold up her dress/skirt and balance while she uses the potty. We have had quite a few messes 'cause Emily CANNOT yet do that. LOL.