So proud of her

One advantage of having grown up mostly avoiding other kids, and only deciding to have my own family later on in life is that I know very little about kids in general, and in particular what milestones they’re likely to achieve when. This means that I am constantly being amazed by what my kids can do, and I obviously think they are the most brilliant kids ever! The geekson has the slight disadvantage in that I can sometimes remember how old his sister was when she achieved certain milestones, but for the geekdaughter the world is completely her oyster as I have absolutely no pre-conceived ideas of what she should be able to do when.

I try not to be a “look how great my kids are” bore, but one of the main purposes of this blog is to share news about how the kids are getting on, so at the same time I feel no shame in sharing with you a couple of things that the geekdaughter has done recently…

She is really enjoying writing and drawing at the moment, which is something I’m really pleased about. It’s quite often hard to get her to concentrate on something for any period of time, so I am really pleased when I get great reports about her hard work from nursery, and when I see her sitting quietly at home, shunning the iPad for more traditional activities.

Take this picture for example. A couple of weeks ago she and the geekdaddy came to watch the geekson’s swimming lesson. It’s held in a local hotel, so there are a few tables and chairs around the pool, and friends and family can go along to watch if they want. The geekdaughter took along her backpack with a few activities in it, and at the end of the lesson she very proudly showed me this picture. All her own work with the exception of one of the bees and one flower, which were the geekdaddy’s contribution. Those that know more about these things than I do say that the best thing about this picture is that she’s drawn the right number of fingers and toes – this is a key development stage I believe.

Then last week I collected her from nursery to be told that she’d earned herself a sticker for knowing all her numbers from 1 to 20. I’m told that they do work with flashcards, learning to recognise each number with no prompting, and the geekdaughter had recognised every single number they put in front of her.

Then there’s I-spy. I have no idea how old I was when I started being able to play that, but the geekdaughter is there. She loves choosing the I-spy rather than guessing, but the last few times we’ve played she has been absolutely spot on knowing what letter each object starts with. She still gets a little muddled when I am doing the “spying” and makes silly guesses, but she’s absolutely blowing me away with how much she knows at the moment.

But the thing that’s amazed me the most is this:

This was her masterpiece from this weekend. She started on it all by herself, fetching the paper and a pen, and sitting herself at our coffee table whilst the geekson and I had our breakfast. She’d written the first 4 letters by the time I realised what she was up to. She got a little stuck after “d”, and asked me what came next, so I suggested she sing the alphabet song to help her remember. She then proceeded to write out all the letters of the alphabet, one after the other. I only had to help her with two letters – the “f” and the “j”, both of which I drew in dots for her to trace as she wasn’t sure of the letter shapes. Two letters. Out of twenty-six. Wow.

Oh yes – you see all those little dots over the first few letters – that’s were she was keeping track of the letters as she sang the song. Over and over again, each time getting one letter further along. Yes, we had a little hiccup with the “n” in that she wrote it once, then lost confidence in what she was doing and crossed it out, so I sat with her whilst we sang the song through once more to reassure her she had been right the first time.

I don’t care how she compares to other kids, or any national standards or targets. I think she’s doing brilliantly, and I am just so proud of her!

Tagged as: development, drawing, four year old, writing