I feel embarrassed to even be writing this but I do sometimes marvel and wonder and then I feel bad for even thinking such things. I know every toddler parent thinks their kid is super smart and I know you can't really tell until they're much older because early in life parental effort has a big impact on skills but as a child gets older it's more and more down to innate ability/personality. I also know there's nothing to "do" about it at this age.
But I swear my kid is super smart and I had such an awful time in school because I was "ahead" (dunno about smart, if we go by the parental investment effect for early development it was probably just that my parents worked with me a lot - once I hit my teens I crashed and burned mightily). I want to keep an eye out so my son can avoid some of the awful experiences I had.
Anyway, my son is 2 on saturday. He is getting close to reading (knows all the letter sounds and has one exactly one occasion successfully blended them). He knew all his 2D shapes before he was 1. He took longer with colours, was about 19 months when he consistently got his colours right. He can get you a number of objects on command but isn't perfect, I mean he will go get the right number if you ask but sometimes he will get excited counting and get more and then if you ask again he gets the right number - at least for numbers up to 6. He can enumerate indefinitely IF you point to the objects. If he points he gets excited and just keeps counting and not paying attention to the objects anymore.
I'd say his drawing ability is pretty much average, he will draw lines and "ovals" (round scribbles) and identify them. He will do a bunch of sharp scribbles and call them writing (like say "that says my name") but he completely lacks the fine motor skill to do better than that.
His gross motor is about normal too I think. It was ahead for a while but he hasn't really got the hang of jumping with 2 feet yet (seen him do it once but he didn't realise he did it - just happened from excitement - and hasn't repeated it). When we colour he tries to stay in the lines but doesn't have anything like the ability to actually do so and mostly he prefers to turn to the blank side of the paper and scribble.
I'd say his social skills were maybe a bit delayed for a while but he seems to be catching up - he copies and participates in group activities (i.e. doing the movements to songs, singing along) at playgroup. He does greet both adults and children finally etc. Still parallel plays for the most part.
His verbal skills are what impress me most, he can tell a (totally nonsensical) story e.g. "the bees buzz and then they go to the flowers when the flowers open, the grass is open and the birds, the birds are fly, and then they went to the shop and got some BREAD!" He's just getting a handle on "why?" and "because". He can talk about and seems to understand "now", "later", "after that", "today", "tomorrow" and "the day after tomorrow". He can use past and present tense versions of verbs. He doesn't yet use ing very often and he still reverses pronouns. He also uses "the" far more than is required.
I guess I am just curious where he is at developmentally. I kept meticulous (and proud) track before my second was born but since then I have not really paid any attention. It is really fascinating to watch his little personality unfold though.
Do you think this is a pretty normal level for a just about 2 year old?