Miriam at 26 months

[scottahill]

This is complete procrastination on my part; I'm hoping that typing will prove a better segue into work than websurfing is.

• Miriam has a pretty good grasp of grammar, although not perfect yet of course. She still mixes up "you" and "me", saying things like "Daddy want to hold you" when she wants me to pick her up. Still, she uses prepositional phrases and regularly uses 8 or 10-word sentences (often in a breathless manner, two or three words at a time). Her French is just as impressive, so I understand. She does mix the two languages up pretty often: "There is a man rouge!" "Le brown car!" etc. Some of that is her just using the first word that comes to mind. She knows the words "English" and "French", and I'm trying to make her aware of the difference in the languages, so that if she starts speaking French to granma, for instance, we can ask her to "use English". Myself, I know enough of her French vocabulary that I can make sense of what she's saying much of the time, although not so much if she's having a conversation with Mummy. I'm thinking that when she's older, the two of us are going to take a course in sign language, so that WE can have a language that MUMMY doesn't know. :)
  
• In the past month she has started to tell us about her day, unprompted even; I see this as a major step: she's telling us stories. Earlier, I would ask her "Did you go to school [daycare] today?" "Yes" "Did you have fun?" "Yes" "What did you do?" "Did you ride a bicycle?" "Yes." She'll still do this, but sometimes she'll volunteer information too.
  
• She has an active imagination. She hands me pretend food to eat or drink. She'll pretend to be a dog or a cat.
  
• We don't watch "TV" per se, but I have a collection of Sesame Street clips downloaded from YouTube, and she adores them. She asks/demands to watch them frequently, sometimes even first thing in the morning. "Ernie and Bert? Yes?" She will act out scenes from the videos, pretending to pull off our noses like Ernie does to Bert, or saying "Ah ah ah!" like the Count. (The Count is one of her favorite Muppets, as are Bert and Cookie Monster. Me, I think Cookie Monster is brilliant.) J's a little touchier about the videos than I am; the other day, when Miriam wanted to watch the videos, J insisted that it meant that she was bored. I don't see it that way; sure, maybe she was bored, but she obviously enjoys and thinks about what she watches: it's not zombieland.
  
• Speaking of the Count, she loves to count things. She's also figured out how to count on her fingers accurately. She often overcounts or undercounts things, though: she'll start counting at 3, and insist that there are "5 cats" when there are only 3. (It's funny.)
  
• She is interested in people in public (as in, "The people sit in the chair!") but doesn't have much interest in interacting with them, although she will wave when requested, and I've even caught her waving at people without my prompting her. Other kids are interesting objects, but not partners. Actually, the other day I was at her daycare (she goes Monday and Wednesday mornings), and I ended up sitting across from a group of 3-year-olds (I think), and it was really cool: while on the one hand they were somewhat Miriam-like in their behavior, they were talking to each other. It's fun to do this sort of interpolation with kids I meet in public.
  
• Because my mother is the sort who says "You'll always be my baby!" and "Oh they grow up so fast!", I've insisted on cherishing Miriam's progress and growth. Her birth doesn't feel like "just yesterday"; it feels like two years ago! It's hard to remember what it was like to be childless, and I amazed by how much time I wasted when I had all of that free time. I appreciate why kids seem to grow up really fast to grandparents who only see them a few times a year, but parents? Eh, I'll probably understand it when she's older, but I'm determined not to pine (in front of her, anyway).
  

OK, let's try working now. :)