I can't believe that my baby girl starts first grade in just a little over a week! That coupled with the fact that I am faced with the daunting task of potty training her near 3yo brother, which will probably prove to be easier than getting him to talk! I faced this same issue with the daughter, although, she was talking by this point. One day she just walked up to me, and said "want milk". Were it only true for the son!
His favorite word of choice at the moment is "Unh unh." He says this one quite a few times a day. Especially when I am trying to get him to say other words. He says "Mom", "Mama", "Dada", "Pop", "ba ba" (which is all-purpose for thank you, bye bye and good night), and "KaKa" which is his version of his sister's nickname. I have told her that "caca" is Spanish for "poop", which of course rather than take offense, she finds hilarious. I have him pronouncing letter sounds, now I just need to get him to put them together and say actual words. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Personally, I don't think there is anything wrong developmentally. I think he's just stubborn and lazy. He thinks too much...I can see the wheels turning. He plots. He looks me straight in the eyes as he is doing something he isn't supposed to do. Such as dumping a whole bucket of legos in the floor because I turned off all the lights he just turned on. He started walking at 9 months, this after crawling up steps at 6 months, and only crawling for around 2 weeks. He was Super Baby! He knows all kinds of animal sounds. His favorite of late seems to be the high pitched screech of a chimpanzee (and no, I didn't mean for that to rhyme, but I'll take it). Hey, he may not be talking, but he learns fast. Yesterday, he attempted to get the gallon jug of KoolAid out of the fridge. He had done this the night before, and left a trail from the kitchen into the dining room. Yesterday, however, he spilled a little, sat the jug down in front of the fridge, got my wet jet and mopped it up. Good boy!
The soon to be 6yo daughter believes that she will hate 1st grade. She is going to be really good at writing pros vs. cons essays! She says she wants to be a chef when she grows up. I still contend that she would make a darned good lawyer (insert uncontrolled shiver). Typical for children, and adults, fear of the unknown. We, as humans, fear change. We can't control it, so we don't like it. She is afraid her new teacher will be mean. She doesn't want to lose her "free choice" time. I sort of quashed this fear by telling her that first graders probably get more computer time anyway. I also told her that she would get to see her friends. For some reason, she believes that none of them will be in her class. They are taking 5 classes of 20 kindergartners and compressing them into 4 classes of 25 first graders. True, she may not have any of her friends in her class, but I don't think they would do that. I also try to tell her that she is more ready than she thinks. She has issue with math (which they started in K!), but she will do fine. She already knows almost all of her sight words for next year. My fear is, besides the math, she will be bored in class. Only time will tell. I just hope we don't start the first day of first grade as we did kindergarten. Her screaming and crying, and me crying once I made it back to the car.
They do grow up fast, and I am not trying to rush them by any means. I just want to teach them what I can. Impart on them the wisdom of what I have learned from my experiences and my mistakes. Ready them for the world, which is a much scarier place than when my husband and I were kids. Sure, I want to keep them for me for as long as I can. I want to avoid the looks of "Mom, you're embarrassing me!" for as long as possible. Yet, I also want them to grow, become independent, form their own ideals and ideas. Ahhh, the conundrum of Motherhood. I love every minute!
