January Update

I know it's been a while since I've written and updated, but life happens, and I get busy, and there is a busy, lovely, and demanding almost-3 year old who takes up much of my free time.

We are getting ready for Phoenix's next transition in life - beginning preschool! Her assessment for funding is happening this week. We meet with the SLP and PT to do some kind of assessment and to show off her rocking skills.

Her speech is really plugging along. She is getting better with putting two word sentences together such as "help please" or "more please". What is exciting about this is what these improvements imply. I have read that children need to have a vocabulary of over 200 words to start putting together two word sentences. I know Phoenix's vocabulary is good, but I am thrilled that it is this good.

She is also getting better about enunciating two syllable words. She still consistently says the second/last syllable of longer words instead of pronouncing the the entire word, but from time to time she says a two syllable word very clearly.

We have been doing a lot of counting recently. We consistently count the stairs every time we walk up and down. Phoenix can now consistently count independently from 1-10 with very few errors - she frequently misses 9, but we are working on it. Sometimes I sign along with her counting as a visual cue, but not always.

Phoenix is also getting better with her pretend play. She likes to go to her kitchen set and pretend to wash her hands and drink from the cups. She likes to go to her bed and pretend to go to sleep. She also likes to throw her books down the stairs and dump out her blocks.

She's doing great, but she is still a 2 year old.

Taking Risks

Taking risks is a personality trait that is seen (or not seen) from a very young age. Children who are risk takers will try new skills over and over until they perfect it. Observers will watch a new skill, internalize it, then attempt it when they can perform it accurately. One isn't better than the other, it's just something to be aware of.

Phoenix is a risk taker. She'll attempt things over and over, even if the attempt isn't perfect. In many ways, this is a great skill to have. It means she'll attempt new words even if she can't say them exactly right. It means she'll try to climb new play structures (sometimes with support).

Lately Phoenix has been becoming interested in walking down the stairs. We took the baby gates off months ago because she was so competent crawling up and down them safely. However, her two friends at her day home walk up and down the stairs independently and Phoenix is trying to model their behaviour. So for the last few weeks we have offered Phoe our hand when she walks down the stairs so she can practise walking down them forward ( rather than crawling down backwards). This morning she took one step down on her own before I caught her and asked her to go back up to the playroom. This afternoon I was making dinner down stairs while Phoe played with her iPad upstairs in the playroom.

She was halfway down the stairs before I realized that she was walking down herself.

It's a good thing I am a behaviour teacher, because I was able to keep my cool and rush over to hold her hand the rest of the way down.

It is wonderful that she is learning a new skill and practising it until she really gets it. But man, is it ever scary to let your child take risks like that. I mean, where's the line between taking risks and breaking your neck?

I want her to take chances in her learning and to not be afraid to fail. I see the most progress in my students who are able to take risks with their learning. It is such a great quality to have in a learner and I am thrilled that Phoenix has naturally cultivated this. But where as a parent do you draw the line? I would never have let her walk down those stairs on her own, but she showed me that, at least tonight, she was able to do it.

I think I might have to give her more opportunities to show me what she can do, but with the safety of mom right in front of her.

My favorite new Phoenixisms

Phoenix is trucking along in her development recently. Our trips to the gymboree play gym have been so successful that she recently learned how to climb out of her crib, necessitating a quick transformation of her crib into a day bed. Luckily, she adjusted to the change quite easily and she remains in her bed all night until I go get her in the morning.

It's so funny when you start to hear your own linguistic idiosyncrasies popping out of your child's mouth. For a long time, Phoenix repeated a single word back to us in response to a question or comment. "Phoenix, do you want to watch Singing Time?" And she would reply "Time." This is a totally normal developmental stage in terms of speech that all kids move through. Then Phoenix started using "OK!" a few months ago in response to questions we pose to her. Her new response is "Sure!" when we make a request now.

"Phoenix, can we put on your shoes?" "Sure!"

"Phoenix it is time to get dressed." "Sure!"

Not surprisingly, "Sure" and "OK" are words I use frequently in my day to day life. Even my students make fun of me for my over use of OK.

The other new Phoenixism that I am loving is her unique attempt at "Thank You". Whenever we say thank you to her, the response we get is "Q!" as in "than - kyou". Tee hee. It's so adorable, I don't even try to correct her. Not ever.

We've also been trying to get her to put two words together more consistently. I do a lot of cuing with her to help with this such as "Bye" pause "Mom". She repeats each word separately, but we are working on getting the pause in between the two words shorter and shorter. It's gotten cold here in the last month, so all on her own she has been putting together "Cold, Brrr" while making the sign for cold. It's very sweet and I can't help but repeat it after her it is so cute.

Here are some new photos from the last week.

 We decorated the tree this week. Phoenix keeps on taking the ornaments on and off so I bought her some soft toy ornaments that she can place on the tree and take them back off as many times as she wants.

Here's Phoenix about 3 minutes before she started to eat the play dough. She'll eat play dough but not vegetables. Sigh.

And here she is enjoying pea butter (like peanut butter but made with peas) with pretzels. Then just eating the pea butter from a spoon. Then off of my fingers. What can I say, I am a sucker for getting her to eat anyway she'll do it.