Trying to keep up with my kids

The girls change in leaps and bounds every time I blink, it seems.

It's easy to tell that AJ reads a lot, because she talks like she just walked out of a classic book. A day or two ago she threw a bean bag into the window sill of an upper window, where it lodged out of reach. As M&M squealed in horror, AJ smiled serenely and said, "Actually, I'm rather proud of my act."

She has decided she wants to be a doctor when she grows up. This was cemented (at least for this week) by this week's visit from my college friend who shares her name, Dr. A the Pediatric Endocrinologist. Dr. A will be doing her fellowship at Fabulous Children's Hospital, and came to look at apartments in preparation for her move.

AJ said, "When I become a doctor, Dr. A and I can identify ourselves by the same color, because we both share the same name. Then we will both be Doctor A, and our color will be purple." (Purple is Dr. A's favorite color, as well as mine.)

Both AJ and M&M are reading a lot. Right now, AJ is reading the Grandma's Attic series (after finishing Alice in Wonderland and The Trumpet of the Swan) and M&M is reading Stuart Little. They both become so engrossed in their books that it's hard to pull them out to do other things, and they enjoy retelling the stories over dinner or reading us excerpts throughout the day.

Last week M&M (age 4 1/2) decided she wanted to write down all the names of animals on a puzzle we have. So she did, in large red letters:



##############################

Later, Baby E (age 20 months) got a green pen and added her own postscript:



Baby E was looking at this:



When she wrote this:



If you look at the larger photo of her writing above, you can make out other G and O shapes, and an S as well.

She loves to write. Baby E is a consummate imitator (one of the reasons she picks up sign language so quickly and easily), and she watches carefully every detail of what we do.

So when she writes, she doesn't just hold the pen in her fist and scribble. She holds it carefully in her right hand, just the right distance from the tip, between her thumb and first finger, the other fingers resting underneath in perfect curvation. Then she puts her left hand on the paper, leans over with a look of concentration, and makes small careful shapes in ink.

As she slowly moves the pen in controlled motions, she'll say "E - A - M - D - 3"--one letter for each shape she makes on the paper. At this point the letter or number names and the shapes don't necessarily match, but they are becoming more and more recognizable. She nearly always says "L" or "One" when she draws a straight line, for instance.

She's not terribly interested in drawing pictures at this point; she's more interested in writing letters and words. She never has been much of a scribbler, but writing recognizable letters and numbers at 20 months has got to be a tad unusual.

AJ and M&M, along with writing letters to anyone and everyone on scraps of paper, are making drawings that are more realistic each day. I'll have to post some pictures of those soon.

I wonder if parents ever get to a time when they don't feel like dropping everything and staring open-mouthed in amazement whenever their kids do something new. It's so much fun to watch them develop and grow.