Children are constantly changing, but sometimes you look at them and you notice that they have suddenly made a huge jump in how they look or act. Little has just turned 34 months old, (yes I know I should just say nearly 3, but I’m trying to be accurate) and in the last few weeks there has been a definite change in her. I stopped doing her monthly updates nearly a year ago so I thought I would write this post to record the milestone.  Are there still development leaps at this age? This nearly “nearly out of the terrible twos leap” has seen her communication improve and her a growing determination to have her own way (not that she has had a terrible two’s, I feel our “horror year” is yet to come).

Little has been talking for a long time and she has a great vocabulary, but recently she has started to form much longer sentences and she is showing a greater level of understanding. There have been many occasions when her Dad and I have looked at each other in amazement or sent each other messages to share what she has said. They are simple things like her saying he shouldn’t buy sausages because we already had some. That’s a pretty smart thing for a 2 year old to say really.

One of the most obvious changes in her communication is that she is finally getting her numbers and colours sorted. She has been able to count from 5 upwards for sometime, but she was never really a fan of the first few numbers so typical counting would be “1, 5, 6, 7, 8” etc. Now she has decided to use the numbers “2, 3 and 4” as well as the rest and she loves to use them. We can rarely walk up a flight of stairs when we are out without her counting them. Colours were another thing she struggled with and although she could match items which were the same colour she wasn’t able to tell you the colours name. She finally seems to be cracking this and is getting them correct more often than not. 

Little’s memory recall has noticeably improved too and I have been impressed on a few occasions by her mentioning something from months ago. It goes to show that even when you don’t realise it they are taking everything in. Little also has a better understanding of events in the future, for example after leaving playgroup on a Monday she said “Nursery tomorrow” which is correct (she goes to nursery for a few hours on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings). It’s making me worry more about what I say and do!

The independence streak is a less fun development, but I’m used to it from her big sister, for instance Little now likes to choose what she is going to wear. I think her sister became fussy about clothes when she was 2 and for years she refused to wear anything other than a dress which means that we have very few tops in sizes between 2 and 4. One of the things we are getting a refusal of a lot at the moment is wearing a coat, but that’s fine because who needs to wear a coat when it’s single figures outside? I’ll be wearing several layers, a coat, hat and gloves and Little will be running around in a t-shirt, sometimes with her sister too. Please don’t judge me people with compliant children.

We frequently get faces pulled at us or “no”s when we ask Little to do things, but she asks to help us at times too. Inconvenient times like when we are cooking and there isn’t really anything safe for her to do, but it’s nice that she is asking I guess.

Overall though it’s her talking that impresses me, I love her long sentences and not just when she told me that she loved me “best in the world”, because I’m not entirely sure if she said best or breast...