Hopefully I have successfully managed to change my nickname on this one. I don't want people to think I'm boasting as this is a genuine question, not a boast.
My DD is twenty four months old and whilst I've just thought of her as normal a couple of conversations with people who work with child development have led me to wonder whether my daughter might be quite advanced for her age.
At two she can say over 500 words. She started talking early and always uses three or four word sentences, sometimes five or six. They are not rare. She is able to maintain a conversation and make some quite complex statements, like yesterday I asked her if she was okay, when I was driving in the car, and she replied that she was 'looking pretty stars mummy'.
She knows most of her colours including pink / purple / brown / orange and has done for about 6 months now.
She sings most nursery ryhmes, and whilst not all the words are there, words like 'the' and 'and' etc get left out, but otherwise she can sing the full nursery ryhmes for at least half a dozen songs, and part of the lyrics for at least another dozen.
She has known her basic shapes, like circle, traingle, square etc for at least four months and is now learning more complex ones like diamond, semi circle, arch etc.
At two she obviously does not read, but she does know what writing is, and will often point to written numbers and say 'what number mummy'.
She can count to fifteen reliably, and when asked can sometimes recoginse one or two objects in your hand. So if you ask her how many apples have I got, and you've got one or two, she is fairly reliable at getting that right, although by no means completely.
She is a very confident child who will talk to anyone and everyone. She is also quite bossy too. She will regularly say I, me, you, it, although she often gets them wrong still.
So is this normal for a 24 month old child, or is she particularly advanced? If she is, should I be doing anything to encourage this, or just leave it all up to fate? I would not want to hot house her in any way shape or form, but I would not want to see talents go undiscovered. I would just like to add, that I have not hot housed her or formally taught her anything, this is merely what she has picked up from reading books with my husband and I, and from playing with us and going to nursery, which she attends part time. She is also an only child. Thanks for your help. Again, I haven't written all this to boast, but just so that you get a flavor for what she is like and whether you think her abilities are good but normal, or whether it is more than that, and if so what should I do about it. Thank you for your help.