I have always thought Autumn was smart, she is my daughter, and to parents their kids are the smartest! But when my Visiting Teacher came over last night she told me how much smarter she was than her son, who is a few months older than her, I thought it's not only me who thinks she is brilliant. My inlaws are always surprised by her. At her last dr. appt. her dr. was very pleased to hear that Autumn had quite the vocabulary and could point out several body parts.
For a 15 month old I think she shows signs of being advanced, but I want to do more reasearch and see what's normal for someone her age, and what's considered smart. I do a "schooling" with her everyday for atleast half an hour. We go over alphabet flash cards and color/shapes flashcards. I sing songs with motions, her favorite being Popcorn Popping, and Itsy Bitsy Spider because she can do the motions too. Her alphabet cards are Carebears, and the color/shapes cards are Winnie The Pooh. When I hand her one she will look at it and try to repeat after me and set it beside her. Then she organizes them. When we are done with the flashcards she will have a stack of the carebear cards and a stack of the pooh cards. Seems smart to me that she already organizes and sees differences in the cards. Back to the singing, when I sing the ABC's she sings with me, when she sings she sings, "B A B A B A...." until the song is over.
As far as knowing her body parts; she knows: hair, eyes, ears, nose, teeth, neck, shoulders, elbows, hands, bellybutton, knees, and toes. She can say most of these words too. We also have color time later. Here is examples of her work She correctly holds pens, crayons, and her Magna Doodle writer and I can't ever remember showing her that. The first pic of her work I am sending to my parents, while she was holding the crayon I held her hand to write on it.
Drew and I have joked about potty training her. But that was a short phase, and has stopped. She would come up to us and say, "poo" and I would ask if she was poopy. She would say no, and then within minutes she was poopy. It was about 2 weeks of her doing this. Whereas before the last two weeks she would tell us, "poo" right after pooping. (I can tell when she is pooping, she won't look at me, and often she goes behind our recliner chair and hides.) The last couple of days she hasn't notified me of needing to go #2, I just happen to notice it. But atleast I know she recognizes what she is doing.
We were walking around Target and Autumn was reading a book that I picked out for her (I let her read them and preview them first, if she looks at it for a few minutes she approves. She is quick to let you know she doesn't like something) and a lady checking out next to us said, "That's so cute. I can tell you read to her." Autumn reads outloud and she loves books. Matter of the fact is- I used to. Autumn doesn't want me to read to her anymore. She will take all her board books and sit down with them, her back to me, and read aloud to herself. If I get infront of her to take a picture or a quick video of it, she will move herself to where her back is to me again. She is very independent. (And her reading is just mumbled jumbled words....she more or less looks at the pictures and points things out, and talks)
Anyways, I would list all the words she says, and keep complementing her. So everyone else can be as proud of her as I am. PBS offers resources on their website and this weekend I want to spend time researching where someone her age should be developmentally wise, and how to best encourage her and teach her incase she is capable of learning more. I don't want to hold her back.
So after not going to the grocery store for 2 weeks, and seeing countless commercials for Endless Shrimp Days at Red Lobster we went out to eat Fri. night. Drew was in heaven. Forget the shrimp scampi, or grilled shrimp. He stuck to Coconut Shrimp and Breaded Shrimp. All 3 plates of it. Autumn was happy too. She was tired of eating bananas and cheese for lunch. This post is mainly for my pregnant friend in a tiny town in WY who has been craving shrimp for awhile. My favorite part of the night, Cheddar Bay Biscuits and seeing Drew hurt so badly afterwards from over indulging. 
Later today we go for a walk to the mailbox and her hands quickly became drawn to a cactus. She really cant keep her hands to herself. She doesn't do anything or cry about it so I assume she didn't get pricked. When we get back inside she keeps her right hand straight and uses her left hand for everything. She wouldn't even bend her fingers. Out of the blue she starts crying and I look at her hand and it's full of clear, hair-like prickles, all over her palm and fingers. I got them all out, thankfully. But I hope it teaches her to keep her hands to herself. 
