Mixmaster Tessie

Evidently no longer satisfied with straight-up deliveries of songs and nursery rhymes, Tessie has started to mix things up a bit.

Mary had a black sheep, black sheep, black sheep
Mary had a black sheep
Gently down the stream.

Tessie's Dad and I burst out laughing when she came up with this one in the car, so she spent the rest of the ride coming up with other new combos and laughing hysterically at herself. "Tessie funny!"

Brand recognition

A couple of days ago, while running errands, Tessie and I stopped at a Bank of America ATM to make a few transactions. Today, as we left the grocery store, we passed a different branch of the same bank. Tessie pointed to its ATMs and announced, "We went to there yesterday buy money" (followed by "Mommy needs money").

Other kids recognize Disney, McDonald's or Nickelodeon logos. Our kid: Target, Bank of America, In-n-Out Burger, and the Red Sox. That's our girl.

Performance review

In my former life as a management consultant with a Firm that shall remain nameless, I both appreciated and dreaded the all-too-frequent performance reviews. In no job before or since have I received such a thorough and unflinchingly honest evaluation of my strengths and weaknesses -- excuse me, "development opportunities." So the "Child Skills Checklist" that Tessie's Dad and I reviewed with Tessie's pre-school* teacher at our first-ever parent-teacher interview looked awfully familiar: a list of evaluated skills, with Xs on a grid denoting observed performance levels. (Mind you, the first skill evaluated at the Firm was NOT "Shares when asked.")

(*Is it a day care? Is it a pre-school? Now that she's in the two-year-old class, it's more like the latter. You'll probably note some inconsistencies in our terminology for the place.)

I'm happy to report that Tessie's performance was rated as "Age-Appropriate" on most of the list, with weakness only in the areas of circle-drawing, and standing on one foot. More importantly, her performance in "Enjoys school" was rated as "Fully mastered."

Thorough though the evaluation was, I don't think it fully captured what Tessie is accomplishing these days. Some recent highlights:

Geography - world

Tessie's Dad and I happened to mention Germany over dinner recently. Tessie immediately piped up with "Katarina is in Germany. She has a backpack." Sure enough, when we met Katarina's dad at a birthday party, he confirmed that they had recently been to Germany. (And Katarina was indeed wearing a Hello Kitty backpack.)

Tessie also knows that her Babi and Děda live in "Candada" [sic] (and proceeds to very excitedly retrieve her ABC of Canada and Canada 123 books whenever the topic comes up).

Geography - US

Tessie has known the name of her home state for some time now. "Tessie lives in California and Mommy lives in California and Daddy lives in California." She can find California on a US map and points out its silhouette on billboards. She also knows about New Mexico thanks to my trip to Albuquerque last month ("Mommy went New Mexico"), and about New Jersey because her friend Nikolai moved there in September ("It's too far to walk").

Geography - local

Tessie is becoming very familiar with our commute, anticipating landmarks ("We go up the hill to the fire station! Fire truck lives in the fire station!"), giving directions ("Daddy's office that way!") and remembering previous day's stops ("We buy shoes there!").

Music appreciation (or not)

Tessie and I came home from the park the other day to find Tessie's Dad playing The Who's Quadrophenia at high volume. While her initial reaction was positive ("Moozic!" followed by exuberant dancing), she soon announced "I want real moozic. Tessie moozic!" (meaning her Toddler Tunes CDs). I guess Pete and Roger just can't compete with the likes of Sharon, Lois and Bram.

Language arts

At 13 months, we were thrilled when Tessie demonstrated an understanding of language by pointing to specific body parts when asked. (She particularly delighted in showing off her belly button.) Just over a year later, Tessie:

• Knows most of her alphabet. She sings the alphabet song, and will spell out loud any word she sees written in all caps. We've learned most of her classmates' names through statements like "L is for Lauren and Lucia. S is for Samuel and Sofia."
• Can spell her name. While Tessie is far from writing letters, she can pick out "TESSIE" on a computer keyboard (Notepad, 72-point font -- our teaching tool) or in fridge magnets.
• Names book parts. "This is the front cover this is the back cover this is the title page this is the spine." (This surprised and perplexed me till I stuck around for Circle Time at pre-school the other day and watched the teacher point out these features.)

Creative play

Just in the past few weeks, Tessie's imagination seems to have blossomed. Sand from the park sandbox becomes "chocolate birthday [cake]" served proudly, with the caution "It's not real food, mommy." At home, she organizes simple wooden blocks into a farm. "This [small blue block] is the little doggie and this [larger blue block] is its mommy." And any sequence of similar objects (e.g., boxes, blocks) becomes a "train."

(If you've made it this far, you're probably wondering if we have video of any of the above. Probably. And I'd love to share it. But first I have to (a) screen through the tapes to find the good bits, and (b) get Tessie's Dad to show me how to get it off the tapes and onto the computer for editing and uploading. Bear with us!)

Conversations with Tessie

Hello -- Tessie's Mom here. Long-time reader, first-time blogger. (I'll be chipping in from time to time.)

Most of my own travels with Tessie consist of our daily commute to work and daycare, respectively. But even that routine drive along the surface streets of the San Gabriel Valley takes on new meaning with a toddler in the car. Topics of "conversation" range from the mundane to the sublime...

Observations and color commentary

Is every small child fascinated by large vehicles? I never realized how many garbage trucks drove the streets every day till Tessie started pointing out each and every one of them. And thank goodness there's a fire station en route so that I can virtually guarantee at least two fire truck sightings each day!

Other exciting sights are parks and schoolyards ("Swings! Slides! I want to go swings slides.")

Then there are traffic lights: "Red light STOP! Green light GO!" and, more recently, "Red light is on top. Green light on the bottom." "Where is the green arrow? There's only a red arrow. I want to see a green arrow!" Me too, kid. Me too.

Recaps, reflections and recollections:

Tessie is beginning to give meaningful -- and possibly even accurate -- answers to questions like "What did you do today?" When the answer is "ate snack" or "played with toys" or "read books," chances are it really happened. More specific answers ("We painted with yellow paint!") are often corroborated by teachers' accounts and/or incontrovertible physical evidence (where else would that yellow paint on her clothes have come from?).

More remarkable to me is her ability to reflect on what's making her upset, or recall something that did. One day, a bird got into the day care building and it took some time for the staff to get it back out; Tessie's teacher said that this brought Tessie to tears. For the next few weeks, she would remind me, apropos of nothing, "I cried about the bird. He wants his mommy and daddy." (I'm expecting to hear a lot of "I cried about the chocolate cupcake" during this week's commutes.)

Metaphysical questions

Yes, it's begun. The dreaded "Why?" phase.

"Where are we going, mommy?"

"Home."

"Why?"

"Because it's time for dinner."

"Why?"

"Because it's dark outside."

"Why?"

"Because the earth rotates around its axis and the sun is on the other side."

"Why?"

"Umm...."

Songs and soliloquys

Sometimes I have no idea what Tessie's saying as she rambles on happily to herself. But if I listen closely, I recognize phrases from various songs. (Melody is not her strong suit, making her renditions a little Shatneresque.) She recites old standards ("Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," "Wheels on the Bus"), songs new to me ("Slippery Fish", "Buenos Dias" sung to the tune of "Frère Jacques"), and, my personal favorite, a variant of a classic:

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream

Ha, ha, fooled you!

I'm a submarine.

Out of the mouths of babes

Loyal blog readers know of Tessie's fascination with trains. Apparently her experiences in Europe left quite an impression on our California girl. The first day back from Copenhagen, as I drove Tessie to day care, she had two things to say:

"Where is the train?" and

"Everybody's driving!"

Indeed. Nobody walks (or bikes, or takes the train) in L.A.

Flower Child

Here's a bit of video from our recent trip. This was taken atop the Petřín hill in Prague on the day described in this earlier post. The sneezing gag is something she picked up from her cousin Andrejka; as you'll see, Tessie thinks it's hilarious. We think it's pretty darn cute.