another leap

It's just amazing to me how suddenly a child can move forward into another stage of development! Like any good toddler, Esther has been scribbling for some time (preferring pens to crayons), but just recently she has made the leap to meaning something by the marks she makes.

First, it was writing. She has heard me spell out the first part of our last name many times when I was picking something up at the pharmacy. Starting a month or so ago, she has frequently informed us that she was going to write those letters, and then she would bend over her paper and make small, careful scribbles that, with a little imagination, could look like writing.

Then over our Christmas vacation she started drawing pictures of objects--like her aunt's two "wabwadoes" (labradors)! Again, no one would ever guess the content of the pictures if they weren't told, but Esther really did seem to be making a representational drawing, looking up at the labradors to observe them and then looking down at her paper to draw some more. And on Sunday she drew a "rainbow" (an arched line) and a "smiley face" (a circle) that were actually recognizable once she pointed them out.

Yesterday we were outside, braving the cold to get a little active playtime, and had a conversation something along the following lines:

Esther: Sky's covered up!

Mommy: Yes, there are a lot of clouds covering the sky.

Esther: Whales.

Mommy: You mean the clouds look like whales?

Esther: Swimming in the water!

Mommy: You're right, they do kind of look like whales!

The clouds were gray and the sky, what of it we could see, was bright blue, and the cloud right above us really did look vaguely like a whale in a blue ocean. But noticing that is a sort of symbolic thinking that I've never observed in Esther before. My little girl is developing a big imagination!

Finally, I was impressed this morning when she made a clearly recognizable smiley face in her playdough. The playdough at that point was a flattened circle, and she used her toy rolling pin to poke holes for the eyes, mouth and nose. It was her own idea, and she told me what she was doing as she did it. I think there's going to be a lot more interesting artwork happening around here in the near future!