The issue at hand: Milestones
The epic fail: I stopped giving a shit.
The project has taught me so much about every single detail of newborn to infant to toddler development. It's also taught me about a few of my epic fails, and, thankfully, how to make up for them.
FYI Fail #1: There are things about my child's development that I can hardly remember. He is not even three yet! How can I forget those beautiful moments already?
For example, I can barely remember Ollie's language development. It seems like he went from knowing only a few words to being fluent in toddler overnight. But somewhere in my foggy memory, I do seem to remember hanging on his every garbled word leading up to his first few clear words. Not that I can remember what they were.
Did you know: Between a toddler's first birthday and third birthday his vocabulary explodes; learning anywhere from 1000 to 2000 words?
I used to be so obsessed with milestones. Then somewhere around 18-24 months, when my little toddler became a walking, talking, self-feeding little human, I stopped obsessing. Maybe I just figured that since he could walk, voice his needs and eat when he was hungry, he had met all the requirements of a toddlerhood.
Fail.
Between newborn and five years old, a child's development is, for lack of a better word, miraculous!
Absolutely. Insanely. Miraculous.
Less than three years ago, I had a little slug that couldn't even move his head, now I have a bossy wild-child that insist on jumping off small walls.
The brain and the human body are a brilliant team that work together to make sense of their environment and adapt to it accordingly. Hello, Evolution.
Thanks to the things I've learned recently, I'm paying attention to the dexterity in his fingers, his cognitive processing of new information and how he uses it, and the little things like running, jumping and skipping. I'm reading to him twice a day to help boost his vocabulary and imagination. I let him try new things, even if it makes me CRAZY watching him try and fail a thousand times before getting it.
Did you know: Scribbling is the foundation of learning to write. Never once did I consider a connection between the two.
Holy crap there is so much going on in my little guy's brain and body. I'm amazed by how much he can already do, and love watching the little strides he makes everyday towards his next major milestones. While I don't obsess over the milestone matching a certain age, I do feel so much more informed knowing what to look out for. (Milestones matter from 0M-5yrs!)
Bottom line: Milestones do matter, and so do the little babbles, scribbles, skips, hops and jumps that get him there. Lesson learned.
