Today is starting out messy
Brett woke up late so he didn’t clean the kitchen. All the laundry from the throwing up episodes is clean and all over the living room waiting to be folded. It’s warm and sticky but not warm and sticky enough to turn on the air. We have several errands to run (an interlibrary loan book returned to the wrong library must be tracked down and returned to the tune of $2.50 a day is one of the most urgent) and Noah’s friend is coming for dinner. I’m already overwhelmed.
It will be better when I have my coffee.
Madison bragging below the cut.
I was filling out the sort of baby book we have for Madison and it has notes about what you can expect from your child at each stage. Madison is and always has been off these charts. She is astonishing. (I can brag about this because it’s got nothing to do with me — it’s her good genes.) She’s always doing something that sorta kinda freaks us out because she shouldn’t be able to do it yet.
For example, she recognizes car models. She’ll say (Madison speech sound maintained to underline how weird it is to hear 2-year old do this), “Dat van yooks yike Aunt Ewica’s.” And sure enough, it’s the same make and model only a different color. I can’t differentiate cars by make and model most of the time, especially not minivans, which all look alike to me.
She can project emotions on other people (and things). Like the other day we were either watching something or looking in a magazine (I can’t remember) and there was a car and it was bumped by another car. She said, “Dat car is sad. See? He got bumped. I be sad if I get bumped.” That’s a lot of abstract thinking for someone so small.
She has a sense of time (although “yeterday” can be two minutes or two months ago) and is mollified if we tell her that she can do something “later” or “after dinner” or “tomorrow.” She’ll remember and tell Brett, “Tomyow I have anudder popsicle. Mommy say yes!”
She can follow many-stepped directions (although she will lose interest if she sees something pretty and for awhile I was getting annoyed until I remembered she’s not even 2 1/2 and maybe I was letting my expectations run away with me).
She already has memorized several picture books and will “read” the right lines on the right pages. (She’s reading one of Noah’s old “ready to read” picture books right now and she’s getting it all right. It’s not even one that she’s heard a whole lot.)
I go through that baby book and it says things like,
“By 27 months, half of toddlers are using six or more utterances in their longest sentences … For example, your toddler may be able to use two or more words and signs when describing the pitures or the story in a book. He may now tend to say, “big dog” or “horse all wet,” instead of “horsie” or “doggie.” By 30 months or so, he can use two-word sentences to indicate possession (”Daddy shoe”), action (”Go outside”), nonexistence (”No apple”), recurrence (”More cookie”), specificity (”This book”), or to describe characteristics (”Stove hot”). … Also, build on his elaboration. For example, you might say, “Yes. That horsie went swimming and got all wet. The dog likes to swim too. They cooled off when they got all wet.”
Madison is more likely to say all that herself. She’s been speaking in long sentences since … I don’t know how long but I’d venture to say that she was saying things like “Daddy shoe” long before she was two.
Here’s anothing funny thing she said. She and Brett were singing a song she doesn’t know well and she said, “I can’t sing dat. Dat song is too crowded.” (We think she meant that it had too many words she doesn’t know.)
Her motor skills have always been crazy-nutty ahead. (Again, Jessica walked and talked very early, too. And she certainly had Madison beat on potty training — Madison’s interest comes and goes.) She can climb, pull herself up on bars, hold a pen correctly (left-handed like her first mom)
Conversation now going on on the couch:
Noah: You want to play Merlin? You can play the music machine.
Madison: I can pay the moosic machine? You say yes?
Noah: Yes.
Madison: I can touch dese buttons?
Noah: No, you can touch these buttons. Only I can touch those buttons.
Madison: I can touch dose but not dese. You touch dese. I can touch dese when I’m bigger?
Noah: Maybe.
(button pressing, great good cheer, Madison announces intent to press wrong buttons so Noah takes Merlin away. Madison is now at my elbow.)
Madison: I can’t touch dose low down buttons because it break tic-tac-toe.
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