Lately, Addilyn has truly become a little person. She LOVES to play with baby dolls. She reads to them, puts them nigh-night (complete with a blanket), takes them to the potty (even though she won't go anymore), dances, and draws with them. She adores all babies we see when we're out.
My girl is a snuggler. She wants to be in my lap as much as possible and gets upset if she can't stay there for a long time. She wants me to sit and watch any of her shows or movies with her. She loves to be held or at least touched while reading books. When she wakes up from naps (or in the morning) you have to take it slow. She HAS to be held while drinking a glass of milk to be happy. She prefers to be held by me and not Derrick when she's sleepy because I have hair to play with. :) She LOVES her Daddy, just likes my pony tail. [Ex: Right now, she just woke up and she's sitting on my lap, getting annoyed by my chapped lips, drinking her milk, playing with my pony tail, and watching 'Puppy Noodles'.]
A few more 'educational' things I'm impressed my daughter can do, simply because many of my elementary students couldn't do. I spent most of my time from high school until last year learning about/volunteering/working with students with special needs. It's amazing to me what my kid can do.
She can label colors, receptively and expressively (ha! once a teacher, always a teacher. that means she can point to them and tell them to you) for blue, red, yellow, orange, purple, and pink. She refuses to say green-I do think she knows it though. It's something with those 'g' words.
She can do her shape sorter like a master. Yesterday, the half-moon (if you know a more correct term, I'd love to hear it!) shape wasn't in the box, and she even knew which one was missing and what color it was. We found it in her toy box, no worries.
She LOVES to draw and holds her crayon exactly as she should. I spent years helping my students learn this! Addilyn also does pretty well with playdough. It's amazing to see a kid with the good muscle tone hold a crayon and roll playdough into a snake. :)
The thing that impresses me the MOST about my sweet almost 2 year old: She really seems to understand feelings. She knows by the facial expressions/sounds of a person (or an animal in her favorite movie) if they are happy, sad, or scared and feels those with them (she nearly cries when they are sad, cheers when they are happy, makes the scared face when something scary is happening). That's such an amazing, wonderful skill that I'm quite aware most of kids her age can do. I've just worked with SO FEW students (that are significantly older than her) that can do that. Many of my students had disabilities from the autism spectrum or severe behavior disabilities. Most of those disabilities cause a person to work their entire lives to be able to understand the feels of others, or even tell you their own.
Now, I'm not writing any of this to brag on my kid, or to talk negatively about kids who are different than mine. Just to remember. In all my years of IEP writing and working with students, I focused on tiny steps and was amazingly excited for each one. Something about not needing those tiny steps or all of that paperwork makes me terrified I'm going to forget everything. I am also well aware/expect that my child (or my future children) still might end up needing extra help in school and would not (at all) have a problem with that. Celebrating and remembering milestones is just important.
I should probably go work on my laundry or dirty house, which I'm sure I will remember-even though I have NO desire to. :)
