Kate Writes in Uppercase and Isabel Walks!

We've had lots of big changes in our household over the last few weeks. Our girls are growing up quickly and they just don't stop impressing me with their desire to learn. A few weeks ago, Kate started drawing the letter X, as in X marks the spot on the treasure map. She was drawing treasure maps and figured out on her own how to make the X. I decided to build on this, so I bought an activity book that teaches kids how to write letters. At first she was really intimidated, but I walked her through the first few exercises, drawing vertical and horizontal lines, and she was so thrilled by her success she wanted more! We worked through three letters, and she successfully made, on her own, the letters L and T. I decided to quit while we were ahead and introduce more letters on another day.

Isabel, too, is hitting more and more milestones. She is just amazing. She started walking last week, and I don't mean just the 3-4 steps she has been doing for the last month. Now she is walking 15-20 steps, and it is only a matter of days, I can tell, before she chases Kate down the hall. What is really impressive, though, is not her late walking skills, but her really early speaking skills. She blows me away. She is up to four words in a sentence, and I can tell she understands absolutely everything I tell her. She has so many words I can't make a guess...150? 200? I have no idea. She is like a parrot, and comes up with 5 or more new words a day, clear as day. Today she correctly identified every animal in Brown Bear, some with their colors. She now refers to the book by name, Brown Bear, and can say the animal noises that go with most of them too. She loves to read, and insists on about 20 books a day. Her other favorite thing these days is the Penelope Peapod baby doll Kate gave her for her birthday. This baby goes along with us everywhere, and tonight she actually tucked the doll into its crib. She even stopped nursing to give her baby a drink the other day, which really cracked me up. Of course, now that Kate has figured out how attached Isabel is to the baby doll, Kate steals it from her and hides it. Then Isabel bursts into tears and calls for Mommy.

Kate's play is getting more and more imaginative, too. Her pull along dog was misbehaving the other day, and I heard her giving it a stern talking to and time out. She came back and told me what her dog did (I think he hit his sister?) and she told me how he got a time out. I reminded her that he needed to be let out of time out, so she went back in there and told him he had to apologize to his sister.

She is also embracing the female gender role with gusto! She has decided that girls only wear dresses, and she refuses to wear anything but a dress. No skirts, either, just dresses are allowed. It was such a battle every morning, because how could I have known the switch would be so thorough. She absolutely will not wear a skirt or pants. She also hates tights, so this is a challenge now that the weather is turning. She has been convinced to wear footless leggings, but she prefers to be free of such encumbrances. Furthermore, the dresses have to conform to her sense of style, which is fluid. I make sure she shops with me when I buy dresses, otherwise I only have a 50% like ratio. Even when she chooses the dress, at least 25% have to go back because she changes her mind about them. I have never done so many returns. Then there is the shoe issue. She will only wear her pink sparkle shoes, regardless of what dress she has chosen for the day. Then her hair has to be done every day. She requires either one pony tail or two, plus decorative clips - up to 12 at a time. I have no idea why she became so girly, but I suspect Cinderella had something to do with it.

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