Growing up fast!

My daughter likes to tell us "I growed big". And she's right, she is growing up. Fast.

But it's not her increasing height that's most remarkable (in fact she's quite little for her age, but don't tell her that); it's her development which is coming on in leaps and bounds. Between her second and third years, we've seen her change before our very eyes from a relatively babyish and cuddly toddler, into a speaking, singing and dancing, inquisitive and intelligent (although still remarkably cuddly!) little girl.

Now when we have conversations, they are proper conversations. We can talk about anything really. She also has conversations with invisible people, giving them characters and names. One of her favourite people to talk to is herself, in the mirror. She and her double have a great time together and chat about painting, swimming and going to the park. They are very good friends. I love eavesdropping on her conversations (I know, I'm bad..), and one of my favourites recently was when she was talking to a towel.

B.: "Shall we go swimming together?"
Towel: -
B.: "Ok, let's ask our daddies if we can go."
Towel: -
B.: "I'll ask my daddy, you ask yours. Your daddy's a towel."

I don't know why exactly, but this made me laugh a lot.

She also shouts at and runs screaming from the invisible monsters who sometimes visit our house. These are often baddies from her favourite TV programmes, such as the Spooky Spoon or the Shape Japer from Numberjacks. Mummy or daddy has to come to the rescue, but luckily we can normally banish them from our house by stamping on them or throwing them out the window.

One of the best things is that now she's mature enough to reason with, at least some of the time. She still has tantrums, usually when she doesn't get her own way or has been told off about something, but this is normal and something that we have become used to. But afterwards when all is calm once more, we can now explain to her why her behaviour was wrong, and she understands. Although of course that's no guarantee that she won't do it again. She is still a two-year old after all!

As I mentioned in my last post, we have begun potty training. This is our second attempt and it's going quite well. We first tried it about six months ago, and although things were great for the first week while she viewed our toilet as her new toy, as with any new toy the novelty soon wore off!

Since she's started pre-school and has grown up so much, we decided that we should give it another try. This time, we re-introduced the potty. Although rejected the last time in favour of the more exciting, flushable, toilet - with its fascinating moveable seats and water feature, this time around the potty is just as popular. Especially as it allows you to wee while watching The Micky Mouse Clubhouse. Oh what luxury!

We didn't use any particular method of potty training, we just bumbled along really, seeing what would work. We started by putting her in knickers, placing potties in a few different rooms and bribing her with a single Malteser each time she used one of them. Although I think that bribing your child is generally a bad idea, in this case it did the job quite quickly. She hardly had any accidents, and after the first week or so she no longer asked for Maltesers; the lavish praise heaped on her by her friends and family was obviously enough! And the fact that most of her nursery friends were out of nappies also helped a lot.

When I look at those children now it's amazing to think that not too long ago they had seemed so much older that her. Now she fits in really well, and is very much at ease with everybody there. The teachers tell me that she's like a completely different child to the one who first arrived there a few months ago. She enjoys teaching the other kids the special dances that she likes to do around the house, and she's even taken to comforting the other children who cry for their mummies!