Morgan’s 3rd Birthday
The AAP book we have lists some milestones that many children hit by the end of the 2nd year (i.e., their 3rd birthday).
Movement milestones: Climbs well; Walks up and down stairs, alternating feet; kicks ball; runs easily; pedals tricycle; bends over easily without falling. She hits all these except perhaps the walking down stairs while alternating feet. I’ve seen her do it before, but she doesn’t do it consistently.
Hand and finger skills: Makes vertical, horizontal, and circular strokes with pencil or crayon; turns book pages one at a time; builds a tower of six blocks; holds pencil in writing position; screws and unscrews jar lids, nuts, and bolts; turns rotating handles. She can do and has been able to do all of these things for quite a while. Among the more interesting tricks is her ability to reach up and turn the deadbolt, either letting herself out of the house or locking us on the outside of the house. And she is now able to write an M and an O when she signs her name. And she will then say “I’m going to do the RGAN different.” And then she makes a separate and distinct scribble for each of the four letters.
Language Milestones: Follows a 2 or 3 part command, such as ‘go to your room and bring back the teddy bear and the dog’; recognizes and identifies almost all common objects and pictures; understands most sentences; understands physical relationships (on, in, under); uses four and five word sentences; can say name, age, and sex; uses pronouns (I, you, me, we, they) and some plurals (cars, dogs, cats); Strangers can understand most of her words. She knocked all of these out of the park ages ago. She knows her last name as well as her first. She knows the name of the road we live on and the road prior to that. She knows the name of the city we live in. We pass 2 gas stations on the way home and she often says “When there is one gas station we say gas station. When there are two we say ‘gas stations [with an emphasis on the final s].’”
Cognitive Milestones: makes mechanical toys work; matches an object in her hand or room to a picture in a book; plays make-believe with dolls, animals, and people; sorts objects by shape and color; completes puzzles with three or four pieces; understands the concept of two. Again, she’s been doing all of this for a very long time.
Social milestones: Imitates adults and playmates; spontaneously shows affection for familiar playmates; can take turns in games; understands concepts of ‘mine’ and ‘his/hers.’ Again, she’s been doing all of this for a long time.
Emotional milestones: expresses affection openly; expresses a wide range of emotions; by age 3, separates easily from parents; objects to major changes in routine. She does all of this. She even recently has started telling me she loves me. She had dragged her feet on this for quite a while. In fact, when I would say “Mommy and Daddy love you” she’d smirk at me and say “I love Daddy.” Which oddly enough made me smile. I’m quite certain my mom thinks it serves me right in some way.