Everyday there is something new. Abby is constantly learning, developing, or perfecting something. We had our parent-teacher conference at Abby's school today and I walked away feeling so proud. Whether the words actually came out of the teacher's mouth or not, what I took away from the meeting was that my child is the smartest kid in her class. Hearing her say things like "Abby is so advance," and "I can always count on Abby to answer questions or participate in group circle time" just makes my heart melt. She is only 2 for goodness sake and we are hearing comments like this! This is my blog so I get to brag about my kiddo as much as I want!
It has taken a while for me to be able to just take the credit for how smart Abby is. I would tell people that we have an awesome daycare, which we really do. Or I would say that Abby is just a little sponge and picks up on things quickly. After much encouragement from Jason I can finally say "my kid is smart because I work really hard with her all the time!"
Whether it is teaching colors, numbers, ABC's or focusing on using our "nice" words when asking for things or talking to people, we are always teaching. Abby knows over 36 signs and actually understands them, she doesn't just use them when we ask her what the sign for something is. This is because as soon as we started giving her rice cereal I started using the signs for "more," "please," "thankyou," and "milk." Shortly thereafter she transitioned to the class that was using beginning sign so it just supported the work we had already started at home. From there we purchased a book with a few more signs and just went over the book daily until after about 2 weeks she suddenly got it and did every sign in the book.
When Abby was about 14 months she started telling us when she had gone potty so we got a potty chair. She would sit on it everynight while her bath was running, she didn't do anything but she got used to the idea of sitting on it. We took a break between 18 and 22 months when she lost interest completely. Then she started again so in one weekend I stayed home with her and we got potty trained. We sent her to school with a pull-up and day 1 she told them everytime she had to go. Day 2 was a success as well and by the end of week one they changed her status to "potty trained." Go me!
We started singing the alphabet to her by the time she turned 1. We bought letters for the bath at about 20 months and by 21 months she knew the song and could tell me what the letters were. By 22 months she could pick up the letters at random and tell us what they were. She was transitioned to the 2 year old class because when the school curriculum picked back up in August and they started to tell the class they were going to do their ABC's, they couldn't believe when Abby just sang hers. They said she was too advanced and ready to move up! We are almost there with signing it.
Counting was next. Abby can count to 20 in English and 10 in Spanish and French! She will even tell you which one she is going to do!
Abby turned 2 on October 22 and she is potty trained, knows the alphabet and understands the concept of signing the letters (her little fingers just can't make all the signs), counts in 3 languages, can tell you the basic colors and sign them, knows over 36 signs, knows her basic shapes and can hold a short conversation. To take a page out of my mother-in-law's book, when people tell me how lucky I am to have such a smart kid (in her story it was well behaved kids) I will stand up for myself and say "I am not lucky, I worked damned hard to get here!"
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