Child development logs: Emer
Sep. 8th, 2010 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ailbheEmer age 4 years 3 weeks
Shoe size 8G
Height still under a metre
Weight
Self-care at home:
Eating: She can and does feed herself. She can get her own drink and cup and pour it, and if the bits are on the table she can pour her own breakfast cereal and milk and eat that. She can spread her own bread and mostly cut up her own food. She uses cutlery most of the time unless she decides not to, though several foods are still easier with a spoon - baked beans, peas, sweetcorn, that sort of thing. After a brief period using adult cutlery she has gone back to toddler cutlery, at least partially because she needs to be perceived as still very young and little, which might be to do with my pregnancy and Astrid's birth. She can fetch and wash her own apples, pears etc. She can peel her own bananas but almost always refuses to start them off.
Dressing: She can dress and undress herself completely, including socks, for indoor purposes. She can't tie shoelaces yet. She can almost start the zip on her coat, and can easily undo it. Sometimes tshirts or small-necked tops get stuck on her head on the way off. Sometimes underpants are confusing - which way up? which is back and which is front? - but she will wear them wrong way up for a while before asking for help.
Toileting: She can go to the toilet all by herself using the grown-up seat but often prefers help or company. She can declare an urgent need to go - to the point of physical discomfort - and still hold on until we reach a toilet (we don't delay though!). She uses a nappy at night.
Washing: She can wash herself except for her hair and teeth. She has learned to tolerate hairwashing and trusts us not to soap her eyes, which helps. She goes through phases of resisting toothbrushing, and is in a prolonged brush-chewing phase now, which means her turn at brushing her teeth is useless from an oral hygiene point of view but great from a toothpaste-marketing point of view. We have to buy a very specific toothpaste to get her to comply at all, which is tedious.
Helping at home: If asked to in her superhero character, she can tidy things up a bit (trash or treasure?) and fetch and carry, eg nappies for Astrid, my glasses. She can empty the dishwasher and sometimes help fill it. She can take her own place-setting from the dining table to the kitchen and sometimes put it in the dishwasher. She can lay the place-settings at the table and serve her own food most of the time. She can slice vegetables with a sharp knife, hand the chef ingredients, and stir even hot dishes. She can fetch things from the high fridge. She will still help empty, fill and set going the washing machine. She hates sweeping floors at the moment. She can and does clean up her own spills, and especially things like marker on laminate floor or paint on the tabletop. She is good at washing the painting equipment after use if we have a clear space in which to wash it (variable!). When shopping she likes to have a children's trolley and fill it with things we ask for.
Playing at home: She sings, and has a number of imaginary characters, mainly called Galligilligosh, though some of them have been Rosie lately. Mostly she wants to play with Linnea. Almost all of her play is social, either with real or imaginary people.
Playing outside the home: She loves swimming with a parent. Also looking at toys in shops, playing with friends, storytime at the library, sticks and pebbles and leaves, swings and slides, roundabouts, bikes, scooters, the playhouse, mud, sand, water, and spotting remarkable (ie things worth remarking on, not necessarily unusual) things outdoors. We've had phases of fascination with reflections, shadows, birds, plants, vehicles - and frequently colours, as every. single. colour. is someone's favourite, and she likes to tell us whose.
Listening and talking: She chatters a lot but has become shy to strangers, and often says things unintelligibly when feeling shy. If she's not shy she's perfectly comprehensible. I'm told her vocabulary is unusually broad but I have no real baseline for comparison, since the children I know personally are so hugely variable.
Reading and writing: She recognises all the letters in the alphabet, as far as I know, and can write them. She also recognises some words but not many. She likes to be read to and to write her own name. She occasionally pretends to write other things, but not often.
Drawing and making: She draws recognisable people and animals, and likes to act things too - the most impressive was the giraffe neck. She can cut out very accurately and has made a number of interesting things - she likes to cut out (from one sheet of paper) a head, body, legs, wings or arms, beak or hair, etc, and reassemble it with sticky tape. She likes to cover all sorts of things with sticky tape; don't sit still for too long! She also loves to paint.
Counting and manipulating numbers: She counts but not much. She adds up to almost ten, I think, but it can be hard to tell what's reciting and what's adding. The most interesting numbers are people's ages.
Sleep: She goes to bed reluctantly, sleeps all night, and wakes in various moods, depending. She doesn't like that Rob isn't here when she wakes up.
Social: She has a lot of friends, but a core group of about three adults and four children she really, really likes, I think. She prefers very small groups of people. She doesn't like being left with people unless they are in the favoured group. She's shy, but not frightened of people or situations, just shy. She is very, ahem, alert to injustice in peer situations (peer broadly defined as "within 2 or 3 years of her age either way").
Swimming lessons: She is interested, but picky. She swims confidently with a float and a parent, but isn't keen on entering the water without a parent and claims the problem is the instructor. We Shall See.
Formal manners: Please, thank you, apologies, sharing, taking turns, hello, goodbye - she can do them all and fairly often does. She's pretty good about offering things to guests, too, and understands that guests merit special treatment (unless they're practically-family guests, I think). She is beginning to learn body-manners, like which bits of people not to touch even before they say so, and not to show people one's underwear, but she forgets with close friends and family.
Technology: She's comfortable with a trackpad mouse and the CBeebies website. She can use the Wii a bit. She can put CDs and DVDs in the players and use the on-player controls but hasn't had much practice with the remote lately; I expect winter will change that. She can use the TV remote to change channel, I think, but it might have been an accident. Or she might have done it to annoy Linnea.
Other stuff: She adores Rob. She's mad about Astrid. She loves and fights with Linnea. She has total confidence in me and usually loves me obviously. While I was pregnant she lost a lot of fitness and she can't walk far without getting achy but that will be sorted out soon. She likes Totoro and Kiki and isn't scared by the scary bits in nature documentaries. She enjoys long phone conversations. And long train journeys. And holding hands with children she loves.
Shoe size 8G
Height still under a metre
Weight
Self-care at home:
Eating: She can and does feed herself. She can get her own drink and cup and pour it, and if the bits are on the table she can pour her own breakfast cereal and milk and eat that. She can spread her own bread and mostly cut up her own food. She uses cutlery most of the time unless she decides not to, though several foods are still easier with a spoon - baked beans, peas, sweetcorn, that sort of thing. After a brief period using adult cutlery she has gone back to toddler cutlery, at least partially because she needs to be perceived as still very young and little, which might be to do with my pregnancy and Astrid's birth. She can fetch and wash her own apples, pears etc. She can peel her own bananas but almost always refuses to start them off.
Dressing: She can dress and undress herself completely, including socks, for indoor purposes. She can't tie shoelaces yet. She can almost start the zip on her coat, and can easily undo it. Sometimes tshirts or small-necked tops get stuck on her head on the way off. Sometimes underpants are confusing - which way up? which is back and which is front? - but she will wear them wrong way up for a while before asking for help.
Toileting: She can go to the toilet all by herself using the grown-up seat but often prefers help or company. She can declare an urgent need to go - to the point of physical discomfort - and still hold on until we reach a toilet (we don't delay though!). She uses a nappy at night.
Washing: She can wash herself except for her hair and teeth. She has learned to tolerate hairwashing and trusts us not to soap her eyes, which helps. She goes through phases of resisting toothbrushing, and is in a prolonged brush-chewing phase now, which means her turn at brushing her teeth is useless from an oral hygiene point of view but great from a toothpaste-marketing point of view. We have to buy a very specific toothpaste to get her to comply at all, which is tedious.
Helping at home: If asked to in her superhero character, she can tidy things up a bit (trash or treasure?) and fetch and carry, eg nappies for Astrid, my glasses. She can empty the dishwasher and sometimes help fill it. She can take her own place-setting from the dining table to the kitchen and sometimes put it in the dishwasher. She can lay the place-settings at the table and serve her own food most of the time. She can slice vegetables with a sharp knife, hand the chef ingredients, and stir even hot dishes. She can fetch things from the high fridge. She will still help empty, fill and set going the washing machine. She hates sweeping floors at the moment. She can and does clean up her own spills, and especially things like marker on laminate floor or paint on the tabletop. She is good at washing the painting equipment after use if we have a clear space in which to wash it (variable!). When shopping she likes to have a children's trolley and fill it with things we ask for.
Playing at home: She sings, and has a number of imaginary characters, mainly called Galligilligosh, though some of them have been Rosie lately. Mostly she wants to play with Linnea. Almost all of her play is social, either with real or imaginary people.
Playing outside the home: She loves swimming with a parent. Also looking at toys in shops, playing with friends, storytime at the library, sticks and pebbles and leaves, swings and slides, roundabouts, bikes, scooters, the playhouse, mud, sand, water, and spotting remarkable (ie things worth remarking on, not necessarily unusual) things outdoors. We've had phases of fascination with reflections, shadows, birds, plants, vehicles - and frequently colours, as every. single. colour. is someone's favourite, and she likes to tell us whose.
Listening and talking: She chatters a lot but has become shy to strangers, and often says things unintelligibly when feeling shy. If she's not shy she's perfectly comprehensible. I'm told her vocabulary is unusually broad but I have no real baseline for comparison, since the children I know personally are so hugely variable.
Reading and writing: She recognises all the letters in the alphabet, as far as I know, and can write them. She also recognises some words but not many. She likes to be read to and to write her own name. She occasionally pretends to write other things, but not often.
Drawing and making: She draws recognisable people and animals, and likes to act things too - the most impressive was the giraffe neck. She can cut out very accurately and has made a number of interesting things - she likes to cut out (from one sheet of paper) a head, body, legs, wings or arms, beak or hair, etc, and reassemble it with sticky tape. She likes to cover all sorts of things with sticky tape; don't sit still for too long! She also loves to paint.
Counting and manipulating numbers: She counts but not much. She adds up to almost ten, I think, but it can be hard to tell what's reciting and what's adding. The most interesting numbers are people's ages.
Sleep: She goes to bed reluctantly, sleeps all night, and wakes in various moods, depending. She doesn't like that Rob isn't here when she wakes up.
Social: She has a lot of friends, but a core group of about three adults and four children she really, really likes, I think. She prefers very small groups of people. She doesn't like being left with people unless they are in the favoured group. She's shy, but not frightened of people or situations, just shy. She is very, ahem, alert to injustice in peer situations (peer broadly defined as "within 2 or 3 years of her age either way").
Swimming lessons: She is interested, but picky. She swims confidently with a float and a parent, but isn't keen on entering the water without a parent and claims the problem is the instructor. We Shall See.
Formal manners: Please, thank you, apologies, sharing, taking turns, hello, goodbye - she can do them all and fairly often does. She's pretty good about offering things to guests, too, and understands that guests merit special treatment (unless they're practically-family guests, I think). She is beginning to learn body-manners, like which bits of people not to touch even before they say so, and not to show people one's underwear, but she forgets with close friends and family.
Technology: She's comfortable with a trackpad mouse and the CBeebies website. She can use the Wii a bit. She can put CDs and DVDs in the players and use the on-player controls but hasn't had much practice with the remote lately; I expect winter will change that. She can use the TV remote to change channel, I think, but it might have been an accident. Or she might have done it to annoy Linnea.
Other stuff: She adores Rob. She's mad about Astrid. She loves and fights with Linnea. She has total confidence in me and usually loves me obviously. While I was pregnant she lost a lot of fitness and she can't walk far without getting achy but that will be sorted out soon. She likes Totoro and Kiki and isn't scared by the scary bits in nature documentaries. She enjoys long phone conversations. And long train journeys. And holding hands with children she loves.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-08 11:40 pm (UTC)Does anyone like starting bananas off? :)