On Saturday, Adit turned two and half years old.

I think the last progress report I wrote was on his second birthday. In the last 6 months, Adit has grown by leaps and bounds. I am going to categorize his progress in different categories that his teachers use:

• Gross motor skills:
  
  
  
  • Adit can run around without tripping. He even manages uphill and downhill slopes very well.
  
  
  • Adit can jump and gets both his feet in the air. He can jump down from heights and balances on his feet as he lands.
  
  
  • He can now somersault. Sometimes it works perfectly and other times, he goes on the side.
  
  
  • Adit can ride a tricycle. He mostly uses his feet to push on the ground to move forward, but lately, he has started to use peddles.
  
  
  • He likes to play on the playset in the backyard. He climbs up on the ladder to go down a slide all by himself. Sits in the swing properly but, needs help in pushing.
  
  
  • One of the things we were hoping he would not learn: Pushing little tables and chairs to get to things that are out of reach. But, he is doing that well, too.
  
  
  
  








• Fine motor skills:
  
  
  
  • Adit holds pen/pencil/crayon correctly to draw on paper. Knows how to draw lines and perfectly round circles.
  
  
  • He uses his fingers and other objects to spread the paint around and to make stamps on paper. We have been getting a lot more artwork from his school these days.
  
  
  • He likes playing with jigsaw puzzles. Finds the right matching shapes (and colors) and puts a few pieces together.
  
  
  • Adit turns pages of books properly without tearing.
  
  
  • As seen in photos below, he has finally figured out the art of bubble-blowing.
  
  
  
  








• Comprehension:
  
  
  
  • Adit likes reading books. He follows the story and answers question about it or fills in the gaps if asked.
  
  
  • He can differentiate letters from numbers but doesn't know the alphabets and can't count properly. He can recite the numbers from one to twenty, but doesn't know how to associate those with counting things.
  
  
  • Adit can recognize all the colors properly.
  
  
  • He likes watching Thomas, Dora, Diego, The Backyardigans, Blue's clues etc. on TV. Remembers phrases and songs from these shows as well as stories.
  
  
  
  








• Speaking skills:
  
  
  
  • Adit is becoming quite a chatterbox. His mouth is constantly busy talking except while eating which is his other favorite activity.
  
  
  • Thanks to his sister, Adit is learning a lot of big words and talks in big sentences. V was asking him to throw a band-aid that he had pulled off, in the trash. His answer was: "It is very very sticky and yucky. Maybe, you should pick it up and throw in the trashcan."
  
  
  • Just like Ashwini, he speaks clearly; no babytalk. There are very few words that he can't say properly. He has the same problem with some 'r's : just like Ashwini.
  
  
  
  








• Eating skills: (not used by his teachers)
  
  
  
  • Adit eats just about everything except boiled veggies that his sister adores so much. The only outlier is edamame. He likes eating those.
  
  
  • Pasta, Sandwiches, and Indian dishes like Khichdi, Upma, Pohe are his favorites. Finely chopped vegetables in these dishes are allowed but, a bowl of steamed beans are left untouched if we are lucky. Mostly, the end up on the floor under the table.
  
  
  • He loves bananas, pears, applesauce and oranges. Recently, he started eating apples, too. Grapes are hit or miss.
  
  
  • All milk products are his favorites: He can live on milk, cheese and yogurt.
  
  
  • Other than chicken nuggets, he doesn't like to eat any meat offered at school.
  
  
  • When V and I eat dinner, Adit eats from our plates and the spices don't bother him at all.