Dear Livia,
You are just about 3.5 years old. You’re growing fast. You’ll be starting preschool in August. I’d better write down some stories about you so that we can remember how you were at this particular time. Here goes.
One day you kept asking me for the “dewderry,” and I had no idea what you were talking about. You were starting to get upset with me when I finally figured out what you meant. You were talking about your new Tinkerbell doll. You think she’s the “Tooth Fairy!”
Other cute things you say:
- Dora Bora = “Dora the Explorer”
- Yay-go = “Go, Diego, Go!”
- Tee = TV
- drend = friend (we like it when you tell us that we’re your “best drend”)
- Jojo = Vovó
- dork = fork
- aw-um = awesome (you told me that your and Marshall’s new dinosaur tent is aw-um)
- trendle-ee = friendly
Now, as you can tell from that list, there are still some sounds that you either can’t or won’t say, notably F and S. The doctor said that if you don’t starting saying your S’s soon that you’ll have to go for speech therapy. We’ll get you the speech therapy if you need it, but I doubt it will be necessary. Marshall had his own special pronunciations for a long time, too. And he didn’t talk much until he started pre-K, but you’re already quite the conversationalist. So I’m not worried.
You’ve always been fascinated with letters. I taught you how to play tic-tac-toe and you loved making the symbols. X’s weren’t complex enough for you, so you would draw long symbols with multiple crossing lines. You used to litter my office with little scraps of paper that were covered with these “cryptic writings.”
Cryptic Writings
(filtered for effect)
You’ve already learned much of what they’ll be teaching in preschool. You can write your name. You recognize most of the letters when you see them. You can sing the whole alphabet song, too, and count from one to ten (and even a little beyond). It’s pretty impressive for a 3.5-year-old. You continue to amaze me.
Love,
Mom