tiger_spot

I want to record a couple cute mispronunciations before they go away:

yellow --> lellow
piñata --> pinyaya

At a party this weekend she and an older girl did like three-quarters of a Who's on First style routine about yellow jello.

She's started telling long stories, with dialogue tags. If one person tells her something or answers a question, she will immediately turn to the next grownup and repeat the information. She really wants to make sure everybody's on the same page. She's also into traditional playground games lately -- Red Light Green Light, London Bridge, that sort of thing. She wants me to make mistakes in Red Light Green Light when she's giving the instructions. She likes to make up variants of songs she knows; every two-syllable animal there is has gone around the cobbler's bench this week.

She's suddenly interested in sign language again -- she's been asking us to spell things, and wants the fingerspelling along with the verbal recitation. She's got the manual dexterity to make the handshapes herself now, too, and she knows at least A, B, E, and L. She gets T, N, and M confused, because they're quite similar, and she might have some of the others but I'm not sure off the top of my head. I think we'll be signing up for the preschooler version of the class we took when she was a baby the next time it comes around to the nearby location. At the park today, she was trying to get a younger kid (maybe a year, year and half?) to eat some pretend pie, and tried signing "eat" when the kid didn't react the way she wanted to verbal instructions.

She is thisclose to reading, and has been for a while. She knows all the letters, and the sounds they make (thank you, Endless Alphabet), but hasn't quite made the leap between sounding each letter of a word out one at a time and recognizing that as a word. She knows that MAMA has two Ms and two As but isn't sure what order they go in, and gets very excited about typing out MORGAN and other names she knows when someone walks her through the letters. I think she may stay thisclose for some time; she's very resistant to pushing in this area, especially if an actual book is involved. Possibly she is afraid we will stop reading to her if she can do it herself?

She's not trying to write yet, or draw symbols; still in the scribbling phase there.

She informs me regularly, unprompted, and very seriously, that she wants to be a nurse when she grows up. She would also like a baby sister.

Morgan is two and a half today.

She knows all the words you could reasonably or unreasonably expect her to know (energetic, noticed, unfortunately, chupacabra, quidditch), and makes up her own when she needs more. She likes to invent little songs, usually to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", about whatever she's doing at the moment. ("Splashing, splashing, little soap. Splashing, hum hum, in our tub....")

She is really into imaginative play. She loves her little kit of doctor's tools, and tries to get any grownup (or dog) that wanders into range to be her patient. She also spends a lot of time putting out imaginary fires by going down slides, locking people and things in jail, and flying rocketships. She tells a lot of stories about her and her babies, driving her purple sports car (with orange stripes, and car seats for all fourteen babies) to the grocery store or the pool or her condo in Hawaii.

She counts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, fourteen, TWENTY! She knows either the name or a sound for I think all the letters in the alphabet, both for most, and will read them off trucks and signs and so forth. She hasn't quite figured out how to put the letters together into words yet, but she's good at guessing from the first letter and a bit of context. She also has a terrifyingly good memory, so as long as she's had a book read to her a few times she can then 'read' it to the dog, using the pictures and possibly parts of the text as memory aids, usually not perfectly but better than I could if the text were covered.

She recently decided she didn't want to go to gym class any more, which is a surprise because I thought she was enjoying it. I guess we'd gone through the whole curriculum, so she might just not have been getting a lot of new skills out of it any more. We'll try again when she's three and the independent classes start up. I'm not really sure how preschool is going. It seems like every time they have a holiday or she has a cold, she doesn't want to go back, but then she gradually gets to like it again until the next holiday. She comes home with lots of scribbles for me, and occasionally for her other parents, and tells me she cried. The teachers tell me about lots of things that they've done with her, and that she's not crying all that much. Sometimes she reports things that other kids did that day, and now she's listing three of them as friends (I suspect, based on my observations at drop-off time, that these are basically the art-table posse), although she doesn't seem to be what you'd call playing with any of the other kids much, either by her report or the teachers'. She does play with other kids at the playground now and then, but she's at a stage of social skills where she's good at coming up with ideas, or copying someone else's, but not so much at incorporating other people's ideas into her play in a fluid negotiated manner. She's also gotten nervous about approaching kids she doesn't know, but with a little encouragement from either me or them she does well once she's talking to them.

She is just now tall enough to ride all the rides at Happy Hollow. She thought very hard about trying the roller coaster, but decided it was a bit much for now. She really likes the swings, though, and has determined to try the Frog Hopper next time we're there (it was not running on our last visit).

I need to put some thought into ways she and the dog can play that they both like, because she would very much like to play with him but neither of them likes the other's favorite games at all.

And that is Morgan at two and a half: a cheerful, energetic, very focused little sprite, who loves books, music, and dressing up.

Miss Morgan had her birthday, and then her birthday party, and these were both wonderful things. For the party we had a whole pile of small children over for a pirate treasure hunt with monster cupcakes (cup-krakens) courtesy andres_s_p_b. Morgan had a blast. We've been opening one present a night since her actual birthday; the family presents lasted until the party so now we are working on the friend presents. Morgan adores making cards for people, so thank-you notes are proceeding very quickly upon the heels of the actual present-opening. Hurrah instilling useful habits.

Speaking of cards, her art skills are coming along. She's gotten much better at aiming stickers and crayon scribbles for unoccupied parts of the paper, and recently learned how to use glue sticks. Scissors are still a bit beyond her fine motor skills, but she likes to try them out.

She's coming out of a few weeks of frequently pretending to be a baby, and seems to have made some kind of cognitive leap in the meantime. I can't quite put my finger on it, but her language seems to be both more coherent and more inventive lately -- she'll stick to the same topic for longer, and she's making up imagined incidents in a way that is clearly creative rather than confused. She's also sorting out her sense of time. She's very interested in what day of the week things happen on. She'll talk about things that happened "this morning", "yesterday", "last night", "last week", or "last year", although there's no particular correlation between when the thing happened and the time word she uses. If you express interest, she can go on providing novel details about some past event for a surprisingly long time. She observes a great deal about the world, and she can tell you all about it or process it into generalizations and predictions very quickly. If you ask her about something she doesn't know, she will probably tell you that it is either "a kind of a fish" or "a kind of a bird".

She likes to sing, and to recite bits of her books. She's starting to recognize a few letters, though none particularly reliably yet. Counting usually goes "One, two, three, five."

Her default pronoun is still "she" but she is starting to figure out gender and has gotten a lot more likely to call men or boys "he". Nested categories confuse her a bit, so she knows that Papa is a man but appears to be under the impression that he is therefore not a human.

Cathy's been delighted with the appearance of incorrectly standardized past tenses ("torned", "clean upped", etc.). Her little linguist heart thinks those are just the cutest thing ever.

A week or two ago Morgan asked for underwear with her pajamas, and she's been doing pretty well staying dry at night. I think she's had two nights with small accidents, plus another night or two where she wore a diaper because the parent putting her to bed was on autopilot and she didn't object, but it seems like a pretty good ratio so far.

She's gotten much tidier when using spoons and forks, and likes to use a table knife to cut soft fruit or spread butter on bread. She would very much like to use sharp knives too, but seems fairly contented with the idea that this is a "grownup thing". She gets frustrated when we insist on helping with anything that is not categorically a "grownup thing", but she doesn't have the physical skills to do quite all the parts of getting dressed and getting breakfast and so forth that she would like to, at least not reliably, so mornings have been kind of rough lately. Also, she has started telling me not to do things like put my tablet where she can't reach it on grounds that "it could break", which is very clever linguistic judo as that is a phrase she has been hearing an awful lot lately as we remove her from drawers she is using to climb up onto the bed, the bathroom counters, the top of her dresser, Mount Everest, and/or the moon. It doesn't work for her to convince me not to do things any better than it works for me to convince her not to do things, but I expect we will both continue repeating it for quite some time.

The Morgan creature, she is a wonderful creature. She's active and curious and affectionate.

She's getting into art now -- she likes crayons and sidewalk chalk and paint. She still just scribbles, but sometimes she identifies the scribbles as dogs or Papa or what have you. Occasionally she'll start a drawing and then ask a grownup for help with that drawing (rather than asking the grownup to draw a new thing, which she's been doing for ages). That's kind of a fun exercise in figuring out how to incorporate the existing lines, so I hope she keeps doing it.

She likes wearing the grownups' clothes and decorating herself and others with stickers. She has definite opinions about which of her own shirts and pants and pajamas and hairclips and hats she should be wearing at any given time -- and she can remember what all she has and make these decisions without actually looking at the clothes, which personally I find impressive. She loves her rainsuit, and jumping in puddles. She likes purple a lot.

She is very interested in doing what other kids are doing, especially slightly older ones. She doesn't always try to play with them, but she carefully watches what they're doing and if they do something new and exciting will go over and repeat the action, like a very attenuated game of follow-the-leader. She also likes to order people around -- parents, other kids, the chickens, the dog. (These last don't listen.) At the library the other day, Morgan and another little girl were sitting next to each other working on puzzles, and Morgan decided that the most efficient thing to do was say "Baby help!", pass her pieces to the other girl, and point to where she ought to put them. So I guess she's practicing her leadership skills....

Her language is astounding. She's picked up a lot more Spanish in the last month or two, and her English vocabulary is... well, at this point if she needs a word she probably has it. She's started using more verbs. Her recent interesting concepts include "everybody" ("Brooks chin. Morgie chin. Mama chin. Ev'ybody chin!"), "somebody" ("Suzi car!" "No, that's a different blue car." "Somebody car."),
"probably" (::phone rings:: "Who dat? Prob'ly Mommy. Prob'ly Papa."), and "last night", which appears to indicate the past in general ("Walk the doggie mama last night," when I only walk the dog in the mornings). She's trying to figure out past tenses -- she only uses them for a few verbs but she tells a lot of little stories about things that happened (For instance, we brought a new toothbrush to FOGcon, so now it is the "hotel brush". "Hotel brush! Went to hotel!" "Papa toast burn! Doggie woof!"). She's also doing a lot of planning and breaking things down into steps ("One book. Then feed the bocks [chickens]. Then breakfast."). "Who dat?" is a constant question. We're trying to train to use "What's that?" for things that aren't people, and she'll happily parrot it but I guess "Who" is easier to pronounce, so that's always what she starts with.

She's really into testing limits right now. Not in the sense of trying to get away with breaking rules, but really clearly looking for edge cases. For instance, I told her it was not safe to stand up in a restaurant high chair and she needed to sit down, so she tried sitting on the back of the high chair with her feet in the seat, to see if that counted. Testing is a really interesting process -- it reveals a lot about both her thinking and my assumptions. If all goes well I will quickly learn to predict some of the edge cases she'll come up with so I can pre-classify them into okay or not okay and I won't have to think it through on the spot so much. She likes applying the rules or usual procedures (putting things away when she's done with them, insisting that she wants socks, shoes, a jacket, and a hat before going out even when it's not actually cold enough to need the jacket and/or hat, etc.). I frequently end an activity by saying we'll do it X more times and then move on to the next thing, or if she's asking for something like a hug while I'm making dinner I'll tell her I'll do it once but only once, and now "One book" is a proposal I will likely hear about seven times a day as we transition between various activities. (I usually go with it unless we have unusual time pressure, but I do keep it to one book. I can be bargained with, but no changing the bargain in the middle!)

She's still into counting. If she's counting on her own it usually goes "One, three, jump!" but she likes to tap each thing in a group while an adult provides the counting numbers. She's also starting to look through books on her own, pointing out things in the illustrations or repeating phrases she's memorized. She is startlingly good at keeping the titles of even very visually-similar sets of sequels straight. She likes Todd Parr, Mo Willems, and Sandra Boynton particularly.

When we pass a bunch of cars in a parking lot, she likes to pick out the one she wants to drive. Sometimes she assigns other cars to other people, too. She's surprisingly happy in her car seat, although prone to motion sickness. She loves going for rides in the bike trailer.

There is no more baby left. She is all small child now. It is a little disconcerting sometimes.

Morgan has gotten interested in counting things recently. Since she's been focusing on it, she's getting better very quickly, so I had better record the adorable mistakes now before she zooms past them.

Her first number word was "two", and she used it for any group of more than one.

Then she got "three", and started counting small groups like this: "Two, three, two, three, two. TWO!"

Now she is starting to get the idea that the numbers go in an order, and has picked up four and five (although I don't think she's said "one" yet). She is getting better at pointing at all of the objects in a group, and at pointing at each one only once, although that is clearly going to be a long road.


She's also been learning colors. For a long time, if you asked her what color something was, she'd say "blue". Now she'll probably say "purple", or if you've been asking her a string of colors and telling her the right answer each time she'll often repeat the most recent color. However, she can answer questions like "Do you want the purple shoes or the brown shoes?" with the correct color word, without seeing the shoes, so I'm not sure what's up with that. Maybe she understands color words as indicators for specific familiar physical objects, but hasn't actually figured out what generalized characteristic they refer to?

A few weeks ago, we all got a cold. After I'd had it for a little over a week, I announced that I was done being sick, really, and I was getting behind on Christmas prep, and I could stand to get better any time now. So it promptly turned into the Death Cold From Hell, and I was completely flattened for a few days. Andres stayed home from work to watch Morgan so I could sleep all day, is how flattened I was. I wore my pajamas for over 36 hours in a row. Entirely flattened.

Now I am back to just normal levels of sick, and apparently getting better, so I have caught up on a few of the Christmas-prep things I did not get to while I was more sick earlier. I still need to get stocking stuffers for the pets (suzimoses made them stockings, so clearly those stockings should be stuffed), wrap one more present (in the event that it arrives before Christmas, which it may well not), assemble Morgan's gift from my dad (Christmas Eve), decorate the tree (probably tomorrow; if not, then Monday; I know some people traditionally decorate on Christmas Eve but I am pretty sure we are already past the latest I have ever decorated a tree), and figure out what to do about Christmas cards (see next paragraph).

I missed sending out Christmas cards last year [1], so I wanted to be sure to do it this year. When I asked what a good time to take a picture would be, "after we're all over the cold, so we don't look like death" was suggested, but at this point (a) I won't be over it by Christmas and (b) Morgan fell against a bookshelf this morning and is going to have a giant forehead bruise for a while here, so I think we have lost our standing to attempt to not look like death. Also I think I am missing a bunch of cousins' addresses and would like to track those down. So I can either: print out some recent snapshots of Morgan and include them with these commercial holiday cards I have; take Christmas snapshots and use them to make New Year's cards; or take a semi-formal group shot and make New Year's cards.

I think I will do that first one for my grandparents, since they are very fond of snapshots of Morgan, and maybe then see about the addresses and work out something or other for New Year's cards for everybody also. That is probably a reasonable balance of wanting to Christmas card and still having a brain full of snot.

I have a hard time letting go of things when I'm sick.


The other big thing here besides me being sick and us getting ready for Christmas is that Galen had surgery. He has had these lipomas (benign fatty tumors) for years, and they've been growing slowly that whole time. It was kind of a tossup whether they were ever going to get big enough to really be a problem, but since they continued growing we decided that we'd prefer to have them removed now, so that we wouldn't have to have them removed later, when he's older and frailer and more at risk from the anesthetic. (That sentence has some really complicated tenses.) Anyway, that all went well and he is now a sad dog in a head-cone for a while, so he does not pick at his stitches. He was a very sad dog indeed the first day, but he is now energetic again and does not understand this "restricted exercise" concept.


Oh, oh! And Morgan developed a "yeah" to go with her "no"! It is very very exciting to be able to ask yes-or-no questions and get two possible answers!


[1] I have alarmingly sketchy memories of last December. It was the month I tried going back to work after maternity leave, and determined that that wasn't going to work. I know we got a little tree, and decorated it, and... that is about what I remember about the holidays. We took a picture to make a Christmas card with, and it had the dog in it and everything, but we wanted to do some digital cleanup first and then the actual card part just never happened.

On our way in to the children's museum the other morning, Morgan got distracted by some colorful flower decals on the front window. The boy coming in behind us remarked upon this fact:

boy: I bet she likes the flowers because she's a girl.
me: I think she likes the flowers because they're colorful.
boy: And girls like flowers, and she's a girl.
me: The other thing she really likes right now is trucks.

I was actually kind of impressed that he gendered her correctly, given that she was dressed entirely in navy blue. I think it's the hair clip. As far as I can tell, kids are still looking mostly at her hair for gender cues, while adults rely more on clothing.

Morgan is an intrepid traveler, but is having some difficulty with the change in time zones and resultant schedule disruption. Trying to get her down tonight:

B: Should I wait until she's sleepier?
C: She's as sleepy as she's going to get.
T: She's sleepy, but she doesn't know she's sleepy. She's hit that overtired stage.
A: If she were twenty, this is when she'd go to the consuite and stay up until five in the morning.
all: [nod]

Possibly I should start doing these weekly; I hear language comes faster and faster as it gets going.

New English words:
ba (ball)
dow (down)

Palabras nuevas en Español:
mira (look)

New ASL signs:
chicken (which she also uses for "outside")
more
dog

Happy birthday, Morgan!

Today she had an enormous party (when I started putting together the guest list I went, okay, we don't want this to get too huge, so I will only invite people that Morgan is especially fond of and who are especially fond of Morgan...
wait, just off the top of my head this is already twenty-five people) and fell asleep about an hour earlier than usual. It was just what she wanted, and she had a great time charging hither and thither, being fed watermelon and muffins. She did not care that some of the older kids were much more excited to unwrap her presents than she was, because she got wrapping paper to play with, and wrapping paper is awesome! She was annoyed when I interrupted the charging to make her sit down and eat cake, but she seemed intrigued by the singing.

Here is Morgan at one:

She can walk all the way to the park, but doesn't because she gets distracted by neighbors and flowers and birds and leaves and sticks and neighbors. Mostly neighbors.

She can climb up and down all the stairs you want if she is careful. Sometimes she is careful, and sometimes she tries to use just her legs like a grownup going down a step, which does not work so well.

She loves the dog, and likes to bring things to him, like his toys or ice or her dinner.

She can say mama (which means all her parents) and dog (which is pronounced 'dadu' but has a very clear intent) and boom and hi and agua. She has turned the sign for milk into several slight variations which mean milk, water, ice, and I need a diaper change. She points at things she wants, or leads you to them with this routine I call "What is it, Lassie? Is Timmy in the freezer?"

She likes ice. The other day she figured out how to open the freezer herself. She hasn't closed it yet, but she likes closing other drawers and doors so I remain hopeful.

She's become genuinely helpful in unloading the dishwasher. I can hand her one plastic storage container at a time, and she will put it in the drawer, close the drawer, applaud herself, and come looking for the next container.

She loves books and hugs and adventures.

She likes knowing what happens next, especially if what happens next involves going outside. Feeding the chickens is awesome. (This morning she caught Teckla, who was Very Surprised.)

She waves at everyone, because everyone is clearly totally awesome.

She makes me think that everyone is, probably, totally awesome.