J's first doodle (and some thoughts)

I contemplated putting this on Instagram but I maxed out my own quota of three per day. And this would be too long, and too personal, and may even look like a bragging post.

But I still want to put it down somewhere because it means a lot to me.

It shows my baby's developmental progress and is something that I have to put it down on so that I won't forget. (Sometimes I hate my forgetfulness. Do you get that too?) So here I am, and I hope I can finish this entry before the baby wakes.

So, it started with the conversation between the Mr and I -- Should I return to the workforce and place J in a childcare centre? After all, this will help to alleviate the Mr's work stress and bring in extra income for the family. That same day, we both realised that because J is inquisitive by nature, and learns from exploration (actually I think all children are) we are not sure if putting her in school will kill her creativity and her desire to explore. So... We contemplated if we should skip playgroups and "homeschool" her instead.

A phone call with a friend today made me doubt myself.  "School will teach independence. And routine." I thought J is rather independent for her age. She undresses herself (with some help from me), puts on her hat, picks up her stuff once she's done (most of the time, lately when asked), attempts to put on her own shoes, eats bread and meats and whatever she can hold with her hands on her own and sits at the dining table when eating. So should I still go ahead with staying home? Can I and will I be able to do it right? 

I'm not exactly sure where this entry is heading. 

Anyway, we were at grandma's today and J requested to hold a pen. I thought she just wanted to investigate the pen like she usually does with new objects but she did the scribbling action instead.

"Do you want to draw?"

She nodded.

So I grabbed a piece of drawing paper, my mum dug out a tray and we set up the "drawing station" for J. We used a pen. It was too tough for her to squiggle with it. We gave her a marker, she didn't like how the marker left marks on her instead. So we gave her a colour pencil, and she tried to scribble with that. 

J wasn't holding the pencil in the proper position so it didn't quite get on the paper. What she did next surprised us. She tilted the tray instead, and managed to get darker scribbles onto the paper. I must say I'm pretty impressed.

I wished I had gotten a picture of that. And her tilting the tray.

But I didn't.

So here's her first doodle.

The obvious drawings and darker lines are done by us after that.It's really faint but you can sort of spot hers.

We played with ice too. And J said "eye-n" (ice) instead of "cor cor" (cold cold) for the first time. 

Grandma let her play with magnets as well. It was quite a day filled with activities. 

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Maybe we can attend "Grandma School" for now?