The little girl's babble has slowly evolved into clear, concise sentences in the past few months. She can speak full sentences already, and has constantly amazed us with the words she can speak. I forced myself to carry an extra journal book in my already bulging-at-the-seams bag so that I can jot down the things she say, and the conversations we have with her.
My FIL loved speaking to her. He was an educator before he retired. And pre-daycare, he was the one that home-schooled Tara when he was here. There were no agendas nor were there any specific subjects, he just taught her she wanted to know, and whatever they come across on trips to the garden or coffeeshop. A couple of months ago, Tara can already name all the 24 animals on the poster pasted on my study room's door. She could also name some of the bugs she saw at home. And read from books. It’s actually memory reading. My PILs always read this book to her until she was able to read aloud just by looking at the pictures. From my PILs, she has also learnt to speak in proper mandarin too.
Ever since she went into day care, she learnt even more. She learnt how to socially interact with other kids. She learnt how to behave herself and keep quiet when she has to. She learnt about things that are dangerous and should never be attempted. She learnt of the names of food she put into her mouth everyday.
She can't read ABCs or 123s as yet, but these are the least of my concerns. At her tender age, I want her to learn about people and things around her. I want her to learn to be independent, to think on her own, to take care of herself and to make her own decisions. I want her to learn manners, respect, ethics, and confidence.
I do instill all these during my day to day interaction with Tara, but the school further reinforces that. One of the reasons I didn't pull Tara out from school despite fallen ill half the time was because the school teaches her things I would have taught her myself. And having spoken to the other parents, some of whom have sent their kids to other schools before, I know that this particular school is completely different from most out there. And I’m glad it is.
She went to a playgroup and as the name suggested, she plays everyday. The school's objective is for the kids to learn through play and that has always been my objective since the day I had Tara.
She always has her own mind and is never afraid of doing the things she wants to do. And I never stopped her from doing anything either (nothing dangerous, of course) as I want her to learn the cause and effect. Toddlers at her age are very observant so at times, I will put her in a situation and see how she reacts. I don’t pass her a fork and tell her how to use it. I will pass her a fork and see how she will use it, and whether she will observe the way the others use it, and learn from there.
So far, she has amazed me countless times. She is able to display skills that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.
From school, she has also learnt shapes and colours but she is still a little confused over colours. To her, yellow is green, blue is green, red is green. Literally, everything is green to her. I could see improvement last week though, yellow is now yellow and red is now red. But blue is still green to her. She can name shapes of triangle, circle, square, star, flower. How I know that? I brought her to a scrapbook store on Monday and these shapes of mini albums were hanging on the shelves and she was able to name them all.
The teachers told me she is the little PR in school. She would go around the school and befriend kids from other classes. And Teacher Ming Chue once told me she has displayed some leadership qualities. She was also able to tell who’s absent for the day, and which sleeping bag belongs to who. The teachers also told me many kids like her and almost everyone knows who Tara is.
Initially, one of my worries of sending her to school was she might get bullied. Now knowing how well liked she is, by both teachers and friends, I can rest assure.
Actually I do know of one girl that will sometimes bully Tara. As a mother, it angered me but I know Tara might have to face such situations in future so I gritted my teeth and hope Tara know how to handle it. During a parent-teacher session last month, I came to know that this girl snatched something from Tara. The school played this video of the kids making sandwiches and the girl conveniently snatched the bread that Tara had made. Tara didn’t know how to react and just looked at her. And this is the 2nd time I saw her snatching something from Tara. The first time, her mother did nothing and just looked on, not even bothering to say sorry to me, nor get her daughter to say sorry to Tara. But since nothing major had happened and Tara didn’t come home traumatized, I just let it go and hope this girl will stop being such a bully.
Tara has definitely become more well-behaved these few months. I realized I don’t smack her nowadays. She was the incorrigible toddler who suddenly turned into an angel. But there were days she throws her tantrums too, but it is easier to reason with her, now that she can speak well and we can communicate with each other clearly. She can tell me precisely what she wants, what she don’t want and what she thinking.
She used to eat almost anything, until recently. I noticed that she started to reject the greens. She also totally rejects beansprouts, tofu, and peas. I had to coax her into eating the spinach on Monday. I had to tell her vegetable is good for her, because she can poo poo easily if she eats more vegetables. She listened and chomped away on quite a fair amount of spinach. And Tara absolutely loves bread, noodles, cheese, biscuits and cornflakes.
But even though she eats a lot, she is still pretty small size for her age. At 28 months, she’s only 90cm in height and 12kg in weight. Is this normal? I must diligently keep track on her growth.
