Potty star

Seeing what Ivy got for Christmas is always exciting. I went over today and found her scooting around the kitchen on a German "Like-a-Bike", which is a perfectly designed children's bicycle made of wood. It doesn't come with training wheels, so Ivy was sort of straddling it and pushing herself along with her feet. Every so often she would glide a little way with her feet not touching the ground and manage to keep her balance.

It's weird to watch her develop into somebody so much better at stuff than I was. I mean, I had my own little skill set (reading, drawing, pretending, hiding, and thumb sucking), but I couldn't ride a bike to save my life until I was almost eleven. And it took me longer to learn to tell time, blow a balloon, climb to the top of the monkey bars, whistle, and memorize my phone number than most of the kids I knew. At least it felt that way. I still can't fucking whistle.

Every time Ivy does something with ease that I never fully mastered, like dancing, drumming with rhythm, or swinging from bar to bar on the jungle gym (she's the youngest kid at baby gym to be able to do this, incidentally, just saying), It completely blows my mind. In a good way. The best way. She's also really good at drawing for her age (the meaningless scribble age), which is something I can understand a bit better. A week ago she drew me a face and body that reminded me of the stuff I drew in Kindergarten when I was five, and she's still only two. I was actually a little freaked out by that. I keep trying to get her to do it again but she won't oblige me. "I drawing LINES" she says, and does little lightning bolt-looking things all over the page. In conclusion: bad baby.