Personality

When R is home with me and J, she is a HUGE chatterbox. She talks, yells, sings, shouts. She also has a real bossy side, too. She's frequently telling us where to go, what to do, what she wants to do, etc. I must hear "sit down Mommy!" "read-a book read-a book" "no-no Mommy!" "color here!" "right here, right here" a hundred times a day.

I was curious how she is around the other kids at her day care, especially since she can be so bossy around us, so I asked her day care teacher. Interestingly, the word the day care teacher used to describe R was "cautious." She said R will spend time watching the other kids before she decides to participate, and that she is very careful when she tries something new. (These sound like very good things to me!)

But it was a little strange because I don't know if "cautious" is a word I would have previously used to describe R.

Then on Saturday R and J and I spent all morning at the park. The weather was absolutely glorious. R couldn't get enough of climbing, swinging, running, laughing, and generally having an all-around excellent time. Before too long, two other parents showed up, each with 2 kids, so there were 5 kids running and jumping around the playground equipment. Two of the kids were definitely older than R-- probably 3ish--and had much more confidence with the slides and the monkey bars and all (the fourth was barely walking, and totally adorable), and you could really see the difference between how careful R was about walking up and down the steps and even letting the other kids go by.

Because I was sitting and watching (J was right there with R), I felt like I could really see what the day care teacher was talking about. In another twist, she's also refusing to go down slides. She walks right up to them, inches to the edge, then turns around and stands up and walks away.