What She Can Do

The Tiny Girl Can Do Chronicles:
That title should have been read with a heavy accent on the word ‘can’.  I’ve been writing things here that aren’t always the most uplifting lately, what with the eye revolt going on in her body.   Tonight I’m going to write about some things she can do, and do well, despite her current visual impairment.

Cutting Paper - She is a whiz at cutting paper.   She likes to cut with the paper cutter as well as scissors and because she understands they are both tools that need to be treated with respect, I’m fine with her using both.   Of late she’s been cutting small strips of paper and then turning them into “books” with some tape.  She likes to take scissors after cutting some of the pieces and do more detailed work on the smaller parts.    Yesterday she cut a strip and brought it over to me to ask if I could help her tape it to her wrist.   She wanted to make a hospital band like the ones she’s gotten so many times of late.   I helped her tape it on and then she had a lot of fun tearing it off.   I told her she should put one on dad and me as well and maybe her brother since he didn’t get to go to the hospital with her.

Reading Books - She can’t read, but she can see pictures (in books with large drawings right now) and from those pictures she can tell a story.   We went to the library yesterday and on the way home she told a page by page story of what happened with Curious George.   When she was done though, she asked where Curious George was because she couldn’t see him and didn’t see him even when her brother and I told her where he was, but she could tell a story, that’s for sure.

Finger Snapping - She can snap her fingers.   I don’t know how old I was when I learned, but I don’t think it was three.    She can snap them and make a cute, little girl finger snapping sound.    She’s shown me several times now.

Grid Counting - I don’t know how to title this so let me just explain.   We went to an indoor trampoline place today and had been jumping on the main area of trampolines for a while.   She and I decided to go over to the area for younger children that had smaller trampolines set up in a four-by-four grid.    I told her I was too tall to jump on them but could she tell me how many trampolines there were?    She hopped from one trampoline to the second, then the third and then the fourth trampoline in the back left corner.   She turned and jumped across the back, counting up to seven.    She turned ninety degrees again and headed towards the front, counting to ten.   At this point she made a quarter turn and headed back to me and I wondered what she would do, because the one closest to me was the first trampoline on which she jumped.    Would she get spatially confused?   But no, she got to the one before the start and did another ninety-degree turn.   She continued in an inward spiral until she got to the sixteenth and final trampoline.    I cheered and told her she had jumped on them all.   I didn’t know she would have the developmental skill to map that out at her age and I was impressed.

The Big Boy Update:  My son’s friend, Gavin, is back in town today.   Gavin is staying over tonight and is having a sleep over in our bonus room with both of my children.   My daughter adores him, but my son is buddies with him.   He and Gavin have had the best time today doing serious boy stuff.    Don’t get me wrong, my daughter can jump on the bounce house and play with Transformers too, but the two guys just seem to speak the same language when they play together.    My son is going to be so sad when Gavin heads back out of town.