Category Archives for personality

I can no longer stop myself from bragging…

Ruby has a placemat with a world map on it, and after every meal is over, she pushes aside her dishes and says, “let’s talk about countries!” As a map lover, I can’t resist this entreaty. She started by pointing at the very largest countries and asking me what they were called. Soon she was also interested in medium-sized countries as well, and I realized she now knows a LOT of countries’ names, so I made a list.

When I point at the following countries, she can name them (these are the ones she knows best):  Russia, Madagascar, Australia, Mongolia, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Greenland, Canada, United States, Antarctica, China, Mexico, Bolivia, France, Norway, Papua New Guinea.

When I ask her to point to these countries, she can (these are the ones she’s learned more recently): India, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Finland.

That makes 21 countries! There are other countries she’s just now learning where she knows the name but can’t reliably find them on the map (England, Germany, New Zealand, Singapore).

I swear I’m not pushing this on her; she’s as naturally interested in maps as I am.  And I’ll add that she can identify most of these countries on other maps that have different colors. I’m amazed. Is this normal?

State of the Toddler

It’s been a while, so I thought I’d do another snapshot of what Ruby is like these days.

  • Just this week, she picked up the habit of starting sentences with “Um,” which is strange because I don’t think Steve or I do that very much.
  • She loves singing, and often gets a song stuck in her head. When this happens, she walks around singing/shouting one or two lines of the song for hours. Recent earworms: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Jimmy Crack Corn, The Farmer in the Dell, Row Row Row Your Boat. I should note she’s picked all of these up from people other than us.
  • She’s excellent at hopping, and does it a lot. She can hop normally, off heights up to about 18 inches, and spin 180 degrees while hopping.
  • She still uses her soother at bedtime, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
  • She takes one nap a day, from about 2-4pm. These days, she actually sleeps almost every day (instead of just having quiet time).
  • She can count to about 12 or 13, and is starting to grasp the idea of how counting actually works (one number for each item you’re trying to count).
  • She can recite the alphabet, but with several mistakes. However, she can correctly identify each letter individually.
  • Ruby’s favorite thing to play with is water. At a wading pool or water table, I can count on her to be occupied for a long time.
  • She also enjoys digging in sand.
  • She continues to have a very exuberant personality, with an excess of energy that leads her to shout, jump, and wiggle a lot. She’s rarely quiet for long.
  • Her memory continues to surprise us, and she often recalls something minor from weeks in the past.
  • She’s going through a phase where she’s open to many foods, which is nice. Things she is particularly fond of are: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cheese, pickles, nori, edamame, corn on the cob, and most fruit.
  • She still has (what our doctor says is) minor eczema on her cheeks and thighs that gets worse in the cold. The doctor says she will probably grow out of it.

Dancing queen

At the wedding we attended a couple of weeks ago, Ruby surprised everyone by dancing up a storm. Steve twittered: “Blown away by the sight of Ruby taking to the dance floor like it was her natural home. She hopped for three hours. I am even smittener.”

Recent Twitters about Ruby

Steve and I both Twitter, and although we’ve decided not to set up a separate Twitter account for Ruby, we tweet about her a lot. Tweets are generally considered disposable, but some are worth remembering. I went through our recent tweets about Ruby, and pulled out some I’d like to highlight and save here. Click through to read them if you’re not already following us on Twitter.

Continue reading →

Conversation

Ruby is really starting to understand the art of conversation. She will even explicitly ask, “have a conversation?” sometimes. Her favorite topics are: her big girl bed, things we did recently, and things we’ll be doing soon. She also has a very caring (and optimistic) way of inquiring about how Steve and I are doing, asking about our moods and injuries. Some recent questions:

  • “How was your day?”
  • “How your working?” [How was work?]
  • “Your back is all better?”
  • “You are feeling happy?”
  • “Your arm doesn’t hurt?”
  • “Your watermelon juicy? You like it so much?”

How to brainwash your toddler

In late December, we took Ruby sledding. Although she liked being out in the snow, she hated the sledding. Seeing anyone sliding down the hill upset her, and of course she didn’t want a turn.

Beginning on the car ride home, though, we engaged in some revisionism and began talking about how much FUN it was. Didn’t you have a really great time sledding, Ruby? Remember when we went sledding down the hill and it was so much fun? We kept this up for a few days until she firmly remembered it differently than it had actually happened.

It was another month and a half before we went sledding again (not counting a failed attempt where I forgot our gear). This time, Ruby was excited and not at all apprehensive. Even so, we were surprised by how brave she was. Not only would she ride down the hill with us, but by the end she was happily sledding all by herself! Even falling off at the bottom didn’t deter her. See for yourself:

Due to her small size, she went faster and farther than we did on the sled, and it also made walking back up the hill much easier (since she could walk on top of the snow crust, while we sunk deeply in). All in all, it really WAS fun the second time around.

Sledding

The art of misdirection

The other night, we were having meatballs and rice for dinner. Ruby was really into the rice, so in between servings of rice, we encouraged her to eat some more of her meatballs. One of those times, she put a big bite of meatball in her mouth. Then, she deftly took it back out with the same hand (as she was lowering the hand from her mouth), palmed the meatball, then pointed across the room with her free hand and said “plant!” (indicating the daffodils we had talked to her about a few minutes before).

It was so smooth that it actually tricked me for a moment. I was very impressed with her combination of sleight of hand and misdirection. Maybe she’s got a future as a magician.