We have jumping!

This morning Ella jumped for the first time, or at least for the first time with enough vigor to get her feet off the floor. She's been doing a lot of "bouncing" lately, making jumping movements without her feet going anywhere. I guess she was scared of falling and finally got the guts up to try doing it hard enough to actually jump.

This is a good thing, as it shows her gross motor progress is catching up. She's 34 months old now, and jumping is a milestone for 30 months on most charts I've seen. While she's mostly been in the 7-9 month range, this item is only 4 months behind.

Go Ella Go! :)

Now I'm sick.. yay :)

Well, Ella is pretty much clear of whatever was bothering her. She's got a slight cough now, but it's not terribly persistent.

However, now I've got some kind of head cold with a mildly elevated temperature. It's not so bad, but it's never fun having a cold.

Anyway, hope you're all well!

Something Ella is ahead in..

Much of the time, I discuss area's ella is behind in. Well, for once, I'd like to mention one she's ahead in.

Colors.

Ella has been obsessed with colors since she was around 24 months old. She's gone through phases of forcing us to work with her book of colors a dozen or more times a day, every day, for weeks straight. Around 27 months or so she started being somewhat accurate at picking out objects of a requested color, at least for red, blue, and green. (Ella, which ball is green? ) At the time, this was largely dismissed as highly unlikely by her special educator.

By 31 months, she could identify red, blue and green objects, and label them expressively with signs. ( Ella, what color is this? )

Ella is currently just under 34 months old, and she can reliably identify and label the colors: red, blue, green, and orange, and usually nails yellow too (sometimes she calls it orange). She can sign brown, but is a bit shaky on identifying objects as being brown. She can also reliably identify purple objects on request, but cannot form the sign.

As milestones go, they say most children should be able to label 1 color by 36 months. In the "what to expect the toddler years" book, identifying 4 colors is in the "may even be able to" section for 34-36 month olds. Ella's reliable with 5 colors, sometimes 6.

Is any of this really that unusual? No, not really. It just goes to show how much a child's interests impact their learning. Children generally learn a lot faster when they're really interested in something. Colors deeply fascinate Ella, so this isn't surprising.

sick again...

Well, it looks like Ella's going to be missing school tomorrow.

Last night we found she had a 102.7 degree fever. This one reacts very well to ibuprofen or acetaminophen, falling down to normal for the full expected duration of the medicine. It seems to stay reasonable for another hour after that, then starts creeping up again.

So far she hasn't had any significant other symptoms. She's got an occasional cough or two, and I've seen her nose drip once, but nothing that would be unusual for when Ella's not sick. About the only other reaction she's had is being a bit more tired, and snugly, than normal.

Regardless, she's doing well and is full of engergy most of the time. We've just had to limit our playing to the house and our own yard, no visits to the gym daycare today...

And for all the mothers who read this blog, Happy Mother's day!