Tuesday, July 01, 2008

That amazing girl

I'm sorry, but I'm about to brag...

Elora is 16 (and a bit) months old now and, boy, is she incredible. Every day I am amazed at the new things she has learned. Completely floored, more like it.

Today we had parent-teacher interviews with the carers at child care. Atti's was fairly straight forward - nothing we didn't know. Elora's session was full of us (parents and teacher) saying "Wow!" to each other when we talked about Elora's development. I think she's a bright one, all right.
  • Her language is fantastic for her age. She knows lots of words.

  • Her understanding is beyond her years - she can follow instructions ("Put the shoe away on the shoe rack in the lounge room", "Can you give Atti his hat?").

  • She is putting together two word sentences ("no poo").

  • She knows when she's dirtied her nappy (usually) and wants us to change it ("appy").

  • She has a great sense of humour and laughs with delight (tonight the funniest thing was pouring a bucket of water over her head in the bath).

  • She is affectionate and gives kisses and hugs to us, her cousins and even a friend at child care!.

  • She cuddles soft toys and loves to play "Row, row, row your boat" with people or toys!

  • She's starting to count (up to six but she knows "nine")... well, not exactly counting but she knows to point to groups of things and recite the numbers.

  • She certainly can communicate what she wants with a combination of pointing, grunting and words.

  • She loves her toy beaver (called "Beeper").

  • She knows the noises of several animals: "baa" (sheep), "woh woh" (dog), "meee" (cat), "ee ee" (mouse), "ooh ooh ah ah" (monkey), "duck" (duck), "neigh" (horse), "snorting noise" (pig)... and so on.

  • She loves it when her brothers play with her, and loves copying them and playing with them, e.g funny walks, hiding behind curtains, playing chasies.

  • Can point and say the names of her immediate family, plus my brother, "Mar-k".

  • Loves Hi-5. Will try to press the spacebar on the keyboard to get it playing on the computer in the kitchen (it worked once!). She'll ask for them, "a-fa".

  • Also loves music and dancing generally. Toys that play music at the touch of a button are great hits.

  • She is particularly attached to my mother ("Paw-Paw") and father ("Doo-Doo" for "Goong-Goong"), will ask for them, run into their arms, and cries when they leave (but sometimes will happily kiss them goodbye).

  • Knows body parts: ears, eyes, nose, mouth, arms, hands, legs, feet.

  • Loves looking at books, especially those "My first word/dictionary"-type ones.

  • Tries to put clothes on by herself - especially shoes and socks!

  • Fiercely independent eater, even if it means using her hands to eat yoghurt.

  • Likes riding the toy bikes in the backyard but much prefers Atti's tricycle (if only her legs were long enough to push the pedals down...)

  • On the down side, she doesn't sleep much. Only has an hour nap once, but sometimes twice per day. But lately putting her to bed at night has become easier. She has learnt the method of climbing into her cot (but not quite got the hang of it).

Okay, well that's a fairly comprehensive list there. I think I got a bit carried away. It's just that I adore the little creature so much! I am so truly grateful that we had her :)

1 comment:

Shanathalas said...

That's our god-daughter! Look out world; here comes Elora!