All About Amy

It's been awhile since my girl got a post all to herself, and today is a good day for it. She was all smiles after her very first dance/gymnastics class today and I am SO proud of her. Just a few short months ago Amy was quick to declare "but I'm shy!" and hide behind me whenever she so much as saw another child approaching her at the playground. Since moving in to our new house Amy has found herself in a neighborhood of playmates just her size, and she has really come out of her shell. In particular she has made friends with the little girl who lives just behind us, who is exactly Amy's age, and happens to take dance class at The Little Gym. I took Amy last week to see what the place was like and she was sold. We spent a lovely ten days in anticipation of her first class, and it lived up to both of our expectations.

I didn't want to take too many pictures and give away to the other moms just what a big deal this was for me, too - this was pretty much Amy's first "away-from-Mommy" experience, besides times spent with family or friends. She's never been in daycare or preschool or other programs, so I am tremendously pleased with how well she did on her own and how much she fully participated in all the tap, ballet, and gymnastics skills they practiced. She talked about it for the rest of the day.

In other Amy news, she about <this> close to reading on her own. She has most of her books memorized of course, but even with new ones she is able to recognize some words and now reads aloud one word at a time, carefully trying to decipher what each may be based on the letter sounds and the pictures for context. She's not quite there, but I can't get over how she has leaped ahead in this area, literally in a matter of days. I think she'll be going to preschool knowing how to read. Wow.

Of course, for as much as she amazes me, she can also really wear me out - particularly with a string of questioning in the car, after a looong, tiring morning, that goes something like this:

"Mommy, do horses live in Africa?" ...

"Mommy, how do you get out of a traffic jam?" ...

"Mommy, how will that truck fit under that bridge up there?" ...

Etc. Or, tonight's bath-time gem, said with a tone of waning sisterly-patience: "William, poke your own belly button."

These days Amy would be happy to draw you an elaborate picture of any of the following: 1) Star Wars 2) What She Did That Day or 3) What She Did When She Was a Baby. Or a picture of the neighbors. Or their pets.

She has a bike now, a real one, and she can really pedal it. Also something she couldn't do just a few months ago. She goes down slides, she rolls down hills, she lets go of my hand.

All those "baby" milestones are exciting, but I am finding all these complex developmental growth spurts to be more fun and interesting than anything we have experienced yet.