instead of my usual Adventures in Toddlerhood Series, i'm going to post about kayla's recent development. those who don't want to read about a mom's brag, i won't be offended if you skip past this (but seriously, you should at least scroll to the bottom of this post to see her family portrait she drew - it's so freaking cute i can hardly stand it).
there are hardships as a parent that will be with you forever and the never-ending worry about your child's future is enough to keep you up at night but as a reward for the exhausting newborn stage, the tantrums you have to deal with and the growing pains of child-rearing, i get to watch kayla grow and develop in ways that blows my mind.
one may think that something as simple as coloring or drawing isn't a big deal but when your child does it, it completely blows your mind and tugs at your heart. we all think our kids are geniuses but mine really is. for real, she is.
not too long ago, kayla didn't know how to color. in fact, this was her way of coloring:
coloring seems easy, right? but for a small child, it can be difficult since coloring involves fine motor skills and control that isn't quite developed and it requires some skill to stay focused enough to sit and do something for longer than 30 seconds.
so kayla's colouring went from random scribbles to this:
how awesome is that? this shows more control and what's more important - imagination - as you can see from the multiple colours she's using. notice that both legs are blue.
why am in awe of this multi-colored frog? because my child literally picked up her markers and went from random scribbles to this seemingly overnight. we always sit down with kayla when she does arts and crafts at home and during this time, i didn't see a transition from messy scribbling to more controlled coloring; it was as if a light bulb went off in her head and she thought ohhhh, this is how you colour!
and what further confirmed that my child is all kinds of awesome? she came home with this portrait that she drew at preschool:
kayla has never drawn anything as legible as this. actually, she's never drawn anything other than scribbles or random circles and to come home one day with this? awesome.
we were so proud of her and this drawing that, after i finished bawling my eyes out, we framed it and hung it up.






