Moving onward
Miranda has asked about "Gandad" a few times, but she seems to be taking it well enough that he's not around. She's certainly enjoying the company of Nanna, particularly since Nanna's teaching her new songs. Miranda must have learned at childcare to clap her hands and say, "Well done!" after every song, because that's what she's doing now (it's terribly cute).
Her reading is going along really well. She's really getting the idea of reading out the letters and then saying the word, although she doesn't always know what the word is. She normally guesses it by the picture, of course, because while she's smart, but not quite that smart... There are a few words she does recognize on sight, though. Pretty impressive for a little girl who's only a bit more than two and a half, I think.
Gandad?
Miranda's great-grandfather died suddenly and unexpectedly on Thursday, and she clearly misses him. She keeps asking about him (she says, "Gandad? Gandad?"), although not constantly. I just tell her that he's not here. I think that's the best I can do at this point.
She is interested to see Nanna, though, since Nanna has come home from overseas to arrange the funeral. Miranda didn't remember her (she was just seven months old when Nanna and Grandpop went for their extended tour of Europe), but she seems to like her well enough.
She's also finally started saying the names of the uncle and aunt she sees most often. The auntie she has pretty well, Wobin (Robyn). The uncle, though, is apparently Egg (Greg). I suspect he's going to be known as Uncle Egg from now on...
Cry me a river...
Today was playgroup for the first time in several weeks. Miranda sat down at the activity table right away (she did some coloring with crayons) and Zoë went off to snoop around in the toys. When I said "bye bye" to Miranda, she started to cry...
When I came to pick them up, they were very happily playing outside, and Miranda cried when I told her it was time to go!
Good memory
Yesterday, we had a rather busy day. In the morning, the little girls went to the family doctor to get immunizations (with a new vaccine that's recently been released; their "usual" immunizations are finished for a while). Then we went out to lunch and then to the peditrician for an assessment for Zoë.
The pediatrician has an office in a shared practice building, want the waiting room is really big, and the little girls had fun running back and forth there. Miranda isn't quite running quite gracefully yet, but she's close. She can certainly manage pretty close to a run (just not without falling down).
During the visit with the doctor, the doctor made a few comparisons between Miranda and Zoë, and commented that Miranda's behavior was pretty much normal and appropriate, while noting the ways in which Zoë's was a bit odd. I already knew that Miranda wasn't developmentally delayed, of course, and I can't help but occasionally compare the two children, but it was good to hear a professional in the field note that Miranda was fine.
After the doctor appointment we went to one of the libraries in the area, one which is situated in a park and has a pond right outside. I wanted the children to see the ducks that come to live on the pond. Both little girls were thrilled, but Miranda was particularly excited. She kept saying, "Duck? Duck? Duck? Quack, quack. Duck?"
When we went inside the library, she very much enjoyed the children's area with all the books, and she looked through several of them, putting them back very nicely when she was done looking.
Today, when she and I were having a cuddle, I asked her if she'd talked to the doctor yesterday and she said, "Doctor. Duck. Book." I was quite surprised, as she was recounting her day rather nicely. The only thing she left out was that we went shopping in the evening, but I'm not sure she has a word for that. Yet...
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