Progress Report: 2 months

The Little Empress, chillaxin'

The Little Empress has now been in school for 2 months. Compared to when she first entered school in April, she has a much larger vocabulary both verbally and signing. Her vocabulary is still limited to mostly one word utterances with the exception of her “were’do” sentences as in “mama were’do” (Where’d Mommy go?). It seems that every week, she’s learning more and more at school and becoming far more confident. She seems to have some trouble with pronunciation which doesn’t surprise me given her delay. She does identify “fwah” (flower) and “tee” (tree) and imitates the sounds for car and dog. She mimics words a lot now and does try to repeat new words.

Now that she can talk a little, her frustration isn’t so much that she’s not being understood but rather that we’re not letting her do what she wants. So basically, she’s being a typical, stubborn toddler. We’re not having quite as many tantrums as we were before but the ones we do have are still major blow outs. She’s also much more assertive of her independence these days, making her will known, sometimes at the top of her lungs. One dismaying development is that she’s very prone to getting physical when she doesn’t get her way. This isn’t too surprising considering she’s still very much a kinesthetic learning/communicator but it is something that I really need to get under control, fast. She’s pretty skinny but extremely muscular and when her arms and legs go flailing, she’s really capable of doing some damage. She’s kicked me, hard, a few times as well as slapped several people. I’m having a LOT of trouble disciplining her. Redirection and gentle reminders are generally ignored, despite repetition. I have a 1-2-3 rule. First time, I”ll redirect, second time, I’ll remind with a warning and third time, she’ll get slapped on the wrist. Mind you, I’m not against spanking in general (which is about the only AP principle I don’t agree with) but I think for TLE, it is not as effective simply because she doesn’t seem to even feel hand slaps. She simply giggles and goes right on doing what she’s doing.

Socially, she’s improving as well. She’s still very much a “I’ll approach you” rather than a universally friendly toddler, she is definitely taking interest in other kids she sees around her which she didn’t really do before. Although, about a month ago, I noticed that when a kid at the playground fell and hurt himself, all the little kids rushed to his side to see what was going on… except for TLE who couldn’t care less. That was a bit concerning. I haven’t had her outside of her classmates lately so I’ll have to see if this reaction has changed any lately.

Speaking of her classmates, she is also quite attached to them! She likes the girls in her classroom and has lots of little friends. She has one classmate in particular named Mauricio — a cute little guy with blond hair and glasses — who she absolutely adores. If you name all her classmates, she may smile but when you ask her about Mauricio, she gets a goofy little grin on her face and says “Muh-muh-muh”. My little one has a boyfriend! At age 2! When I told The Hubs ™, he growled a little. In his humble opinion, baby girls aren’t supposed to get boyfriends until… well, ever. Or if they must, at the age of 25 and done with graduate school.

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