I've noticed that Anya has made some developmental leaps recently. Different pockets of her brain seem to be lighting up and it's been interesting to watch.

Like logic, for example. Anya and I were at Costco last week and she wanted to bring her camera inside and take pictures while we shopped. I said no, because the store might think it belongs to them (lame, I know. I really just didn't want to deal with it). After we were back in the car, she said:

"Mom, when you buy a camera at the store, does it automatically work?"
"No. You have to open up the package and put in batteries first."
"Well, then the store wouldn't think my camera was theirs if I brought it inside. Mine already has batteries in it."

She got me there. Had she brought it up beforehand, I would have let her bring it inside.

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Anya has also taken interest in writing, scissors, tape, etc. She's been writing lots of little booklets. She takes pieces of paper, writes stories, poems, lists, whatever, cuts them out and staples or tapes them together and leaves them around the house. It's pretty cute. Most of her writing is phonetic, words are jumbled together, and it's somewhat difficult to decipher. But she's doing it and all practice is good. I'll let her Kindergarten teachers correct her when she starts school.

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This morning, she randomly said, "mommy, you're an archipelago." I was taken aback by that one and asked how so. She said, "you have lots of different body parts." She went on to give me the correct definition of the word and said that she learned it yesterday at school. They are studying Malaysia this week. I like how she made the comparison. And that she's picking up on more of what the teachers say at school.
And her teacher, while waiting for buses on field trip Thursday, recited The Hobbit to the kids. Anya apparently was enamored with the story. She recited it, in detail, to Chris and me the other day. I knew she had a good memory, but we were pretty impressed at her level of recall. I look forward to getting to read that book to her (no time soon, though. She's too young).

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Anya has also made some leaps in her language and social skills. In group settings,she spends more time bonding with other kids. For example. in gymnastics, she'll huddle off to the side with another kid and have a few-minute conversation. I've seen this several times, with various children. Hard to explain, but the body language is very....elementary school girl. She seems to make friends very easily. As for language, she sounds more and more elementary school.  I assume this is since she hangs out with Eloise and Eva a fair amount. Saturday night, I overheard her speaking with Eloise and Malachi. They were trying to one-up each other. She said, "like, I totally almost killed myself" (referring to when we were in Hawaii and she spotted a giant centipede. She was very frightened of it and thought it would do her serious bodily harm). I hope she isn't starting the phase of hearing the word "like" mixed in to every other sentence. Yuck.