Time to Brag about your Toddler

Loren, who turned two on May 1, is starting to read. She doesn’t read everything, but she does read here and there. For example, There are things we never read to her, such as the printing on most logos. She will point to them and say the word when I least expect it. “Dirt Devil” was the first of these and “Puppetbooks” was the most recent. We refer to neither of the items by brand and indeed, “puppet” and “devil” are words seldom uttered in this house. (That book is most often referred to as, “Oh, not that damn book”) We have not read “The Real Mother Goose” to her in months, and even then, I was disinclined to read the cover and tend to read rhymes only. She brought it to hubby pointed to the title and said “The Real Mother Goose.” She seems to read bits of her books aloud, but that could easily be memorization; we do read to her often. She sometimes reads things aloud out of the usual order, pointing to the words she says as she says them, e.g. “blue fish, red fish, two fish, one fish.” Again that could be a combination of describing and memorization.

She has been able to name all of the letters as you point to them for quite a while, and if you name a letter, she can find one on the page. She can write the letters Q, L, o, i. She reads the digits 1 thru 9 and can count up to at least five as a practical skill, I have heard her counting rungs on a ladder as she climbs them. She does not say zero yet. She knows the colors red, blue, green, purple, orange, yellow, black, white, and her favorite blue. She knows the shapes circle, square, triangle and oval. She is speaking in full sentences. “I go get a pen, a new pen!”, “I want bacon and eggs.”, “I want my book.”, " I want to be Geordi for Halloween." and “I am a bug.”

She drinks out of a full sized glass (actual glass) and a regular coffee cup. She puts her napkin in her lap when she sits down to dinner and has started holding her fork like a grown up some of the time. She will share, sometimes without any prompting, and takes turns with other kids in the park.

She can also unlock a task bar, move it to the side or top of the screen and lock it again.

I think I was most proud when she faced down a bully and his older brother and went over to a little girl still upset by his shoving and comforted her.

Now your turn, brag away!

Okay, if you make me!

My son turned 2 on July 31. He can identify all the letters, upper and lower case (although he calls the lower case ones baby e, baby a, etc.). He can count to 20 and identify written numbers up to about 24. He can recognize his name when written (and a couple other words…taxi, Annie, Clarabelle -these last two are trains he has, identical except for the different names on the bottom, Ford, mommy, daddy). He knows his colors and shapes (diamond, square, triangle, rectangle, circle, heart, star). He can make a square, rectangle, triangle, and diamond with his hands and name them.

He’s the best one in his swimming class, can drop-kick a ball (he did this before he was 2), and has a great arm.

He’s sweet and giggly and his favorite game is “Tickle Tackle.” You can imagine.

When my niece was almost two, she knew her shapes. (I assume she still does, it’s just that she’s moving on to learning to count and various other things so she is less inclined to spontaneously point out shapes). During the shape- pointing-out-phase her parents frequently found themselves struggling to figure out where the “oval” or “heart” was located. On one occassion, she found a heart shape in her potty. (One of those plastic potties used for toddlers). Her daddy who was on the phone with my mommy started laughing so hard he couldn’t talk.

Incidently, it is funny to watch my niece react with my mother says things like “Your Daddy is my little boy”. Clearly the notion of Daddy once being little is beyond her.

Andras is three.

He’s bilingual (my wife is Hungarian). He switches between both languages with ease. Once he spontaneously translated a song his mother had taught him.

He can read, after a fashion, in Hungarian. Hungarian words are spelled the way it sounds, so if you get him to sound out the letters one at a time, he can recognize the word they comprise.

He can recite big chunks of Curious George, Goodnight Moon, and One Fish, Two Fish from memory. He’ll tell them to his stuffed animals.

He has a hell of a throwing arm. Once a week I have to get out on the roof and clean off the toys that he’s thrown there. Some of them he can actually throw over the house.

And he is big (in the tall sense, not fat). He wears clothes for a five-year-old. I’ve seen him face down 1st-graders in the park.

But, good lord, his run. It is like watching Dr. Evil doing the Curly shuffle.

Decaf, I hope.