More on my brilliant daughter, if you're not tired of that

On Friday, Firstborn suddenly became very helpful. When I sorted magic cards, she brought me more from another part of the room. When I loaded the dishwasher, she brought me clean tops from the tupperware cupboard. Since then, she's also carried objects to people to help us pick up. She has previously helped get out-of-reach laundry for Mommy, and started handing me ducks when we pick up at the end of bath time.

Her implementation often leaves something to be desired, but her heart's in the right place, so I definitely tell her that she's a good girl and so helpful.

Her new favorite word is sit (sis or sszss). She gets a book (or several), brings it over, backs up to me on the couch and says "sit, sit, sit." She loves having mommy read to her. She also likes to sit on pillows, in chairs, in boxes or baskets, and in baby carriers/car seats (belonging to babies or to dolls).

I still don't think she realizes that she's about to get a brother, though, no matter how much we've told her. But she does like to carry and feed and kiss her dolls--and shake them.

Smart kids

My husband and I are both very intelligent. I expect that our children will also prove to be very intelligent, barring any disabilities. But at the same time, I know that every parent thinks his or her children are brilliant, so I am not sure of whether to trust my observations. Also, I know there's more to life than being smart, and I'd rather my children display diligence, compassion, and Godliness than sheer brilliance.

A few days ago, Firstborn was transferring water from her leaky sippy cup into a small cylindrical block and then drinking from the block. I was convinced this was a sign of her genius. Even though the cylinder had a hole in the middle. She was making a mess, but I was impressed enough to let her keep doing it anyway.

She has displayed willful defiance before the books have said she "should"--you know, when they give you a big smile and shake their head no as they do something they know they shouldn't.

Someone commented she knew a lot of words for her age--not as sure how typical that is. She seems to be adding a new one almost every day--pop (we have jewelweed to thank for that one :), please, vroom, belly button, shoe, rock-rock, cracker....

Books are some of her favorite toys.

She already plays creatively--the same object can become a hairbrush or a phone. She will on occasion pretend to feed a doll.

She knows how some of her books go--as soon as I turned to the page that said "God made deer," she was already finding my ear. (She always does that--she hears ear and she knows where that is.) She's also associated pictures of objects with the real thing (mainly cats but possibly ducks), but this is a step beyond that, because there's not a picture of an ear on the "God made deer" page.

She knows what button is pressed to get out of her car seat. She can't operate it (which is good), but she plays with it when she wants out.

If she has a shape-sorter toy, she can sometimes put the shape through the hole if I point at the right hole. If she doesn't manage it, she takes the top off of the shape sorter and puts the shape in, then puts the top back on.

So I think my daughter is brilliant. I don't particularly intend to do anything about it--at least not anything different--but I do think she's smart. I think that if I work on things at her level, she's going to pick them up fairly quickly. Some of that's practical--she can now indicate whether she's all done with her food (dah and pushes on tray) or wants more (mmm and pointing). Some of it is less so--I'm working now on "What does the ___ say?" (she will spontaneously make animal sounds, but doesn't know that question yet).

But I'm not pressuring her, because at this age (one might argue, at any age) learning is supposed to be fun. And at any rate, I keep hearing about a friend's niece, her age, who prefers realistic bears to teddy-bear type ones once she saw bears at the zoo and can express this (this was at 12 months), or the boy at church under a year who can already say words and names much more clearly than Firstborn can at 15 months.