e for elevator

Out of curiosity, I was browsing preschool/kindergarten readiness checklists. Obviously BB is not nearly there (he’s only 2 and a half), but I was curious to see how he stacks up.

He actually meets a lot of the cognitive milestones. He can count to 20 (and backwards from 10). He can count objects with one-to-one correspondence, i.e., counting each object one at a time. He can name basic shapes and colors. He can recite the ABCs, and he can read all his numerals and capital letters, though only a few lowercase letters (the ones that look the same as the capital letters, plus the ones in his name).

On the last day of Christmas vacation, we were putting up his alphabet magnets on the dishwasher lid. One of them was a question mark. “J,” he said.

“That’s not a J,” I said. “It’s a question mark.”

He immediately ran into the living room to show the magnet to the assembled adults. I had just said something weird and he wanted second opinions.

I think he might be catching on to the idea that letters have sounds. We were doing this ABC drawing thing where (for example) I’d write big C and little c, and then one of us would say something starting with C, and I’d draw it. For D, I suggested “daddy,” but he wanted “dragon.” Then for E, he wanted “elevator.” Mom was like “Elevator?? How about elephant?” but he insisted on “elevator.” Now, I can totally believe some children’s book has D for Dragon and he learned it by rote. However, no children’s book has E for Elevator. He came up with that one himself.

He has good attention span for a toddler. He’ll bring you a storybook and sit there while you read it cover to cover (in fact, if you accidentally skip a page, he will notice and turn back). Favorite stories of the weekend: Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs (these are from the same book, and he often wants “three bears” and “three pigs” read back-to-back), and Stir Crack Whisk Bake (a book about making cupcakes).

Art-wise, he basically just scribbles, which is age-appropriate. He’s much more confident using a marker/crayon than he was nine months ago. For the first time, I saw him make a representational drawing: he drew a big line across the page and told me it was a sidewalk. (But he’s obviously a long way from “draw a human with at least three body parts.”)

A few less-often-mentioned milestones: He doesn’t sing. We sing to him a lot; a toddler’s presence is a great excuse to randomly bust out in song (the ABC song, nursery rhymes, “O Christmas Tree,” etc.). I never thought of singing as complex, but I suppose it is. He does love pointing at things and naming them. One of the biggest Christmas presents under the tree was a set of pots and pans. An older child might have been disappointed, but BB was excited to point at the pictures on the box and say “Cooking!”

What he doesn’t yet have are the physical tasks. He can’t put on or take off his shoes and coat. I’m not sure if he can drink from a cup, and pouring a drink is out of the question. He can’t use the toilet; as far as I know, he’s shown no interest in bathroom stuff. He always fusses during diaper time, so I tried to plant a seed by explaining that if he could go potty by himself, he wouldn’t need his diaper changed. He just looked at me blankly.

He can’t skip or gallop. This brings back memories because I was behind the ball on these. Sometime during kindergarten or first grade, a teacher brought me out to the playground at not-recess to teach me how to skip and gallop. I remember being annoyed and not understanding what all the fuss was about, but I was eventually able to do it.