File under "blog as baby book"...Someone is in a big hurry to grow up around here.
Someone is amazing her parents, with her knowledge of colors and her ability to count.
Someone up and decided to wean herself this week, thus leaving babyhood forever, and crossing over into the land of independence.
Violet loves to point out colors. She'll make known to all within earshot, apropos of nothing, that the sweater you are wearing is "geen." Or that her own shoes are "wed." And she'll be right! Yesterday, she amazed
Patti and I during preschool pickup, by pointing out that the Mickey Mouse doll she was holding was wearing white gloves. Just to test her, Patti asked Violet what color her (white) sweater was. Violet hesitated for a split-second, as if sensing the test, and answered, with confidence "wh-aat!" Brilliant! She can also, without prompting, recite numbers one through ten, though she can only conceptualize two. She loves to point out Mike's two eyes. "One, two eyes!" she says. "One, two ee-yahs (ears)."
"Go, Diego, Go!" is the show du jour around here, and Vi now recognizes various exotic animals on sight - the scarlet macaw, the llama, the anaconda, the humpback whale - and can tell you what they say. (
Someone is going to freak out when she opens her "Go, Diego, Go! Talking Rescue Pack" on Christmas morning!) She'll often walk around the house with her shirt hiked up, "nursing" a plastic giraffe, or plush kitten.
The normal, but annoying, toddler antics of yore, have been curtailed by Vi's understanding of how things work around here. She knows she's expected to wait her turn for something, and that she won't get it by screaming. She knows how to eat with a spoon and fork. She knows enough to shout "me, me, me!" when I ask who's ready for a bath. She also knows enough to shout "mine, mine, mine!" when she's not ready to concede a doll or toy to Hazel, who is starting to treat Violet more as an equal, and less like a chump that she can just railroad into submission. The two girls are becoming fast friends, and play together better than ever before.
People are often surprised when they find out that Violet is 19 months old, as she outweighed by most 12 month olds, but she's fast making up for her slight stature, with her big personality. She'll say "hi", with a little wave, to anyone who makes eye contact with her. She's a commando at the park, braving huge climbing structures and twisty slides without batting an eyelash, and swinging on the big kid swings.
I often worried, when Violet was a baby, that we would be stuck in the land of early bedtimes and toy wars forever. But as the girls grow, and begin to understand more than just what's going on inside our house, they also understand that they have true allies, and friends, in each other. It makes my heart feel like it's going to explode.
