Democracy, n.: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic... negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Result is demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
-- U.S.Army Training Manual No. 2000-25 (1928-1932), since withdrawn. --
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The Nugget is acquiring words very rapidly now. She asks, "What's that?", and you tell her, and she repeats the word to herself, and from then on she's got it. We're getting multi-word sentences now, and it's amazing how toddlers seem to automatically absorb sentence structure.
I am constantly reminded of her mother's toddler years. There's a temptation to compare the two. I'm amused when Nugget has the same reactions, does the same things.
There are some big differences, though.
Daughter was very good at physical orientation, at using her hands. She could put things on spindles, thread cords through big wooden beads, figure out how things fit together at an early age. Nugget is a bit of a klutz. Instead of lining up a lid on a container, she just puts it generally on top and tries to get it to go on with sheer power. I got her a sort of record player with plastic disks you put on a spindle and close the lid, and she's having great difficulty with the concept of spindle. Push buttons, however, she's got down cold. You show her once what a button does (stop, go, rewind, play, light up, eject, ring bell, etc.), and she's got it forever.
One thing that frustrates me - Nugget is not good at spatial orientation, or something.... If something goes into a slot, she ALWAYS tries to put it in 90 degrees off. Always. Like if she's trying to put bread into the toaster, she'll try to cram it in crosswise to the toaster. She'll try to put a coin horizontally into a vertical slot, and vice versa, and she just doesn't seem to "get it", no matter how many times you show her. Very strange. She now has riding toys she can steer, and she runs into everything.
Her mother, however, who was so good at stuff like that, never learned to write or print. Her handwriting is so atrocious no one can read it (not even she herself after time passes). I suspect Nugget will be neater, but whether or not she masters longhand, I predict that she's going to be an amazingly fast typist.
I guess she's a knowledge accumulator, not an analyzer. Her mother analyzed everything, "figured out" everything, and that continues to give her problems today. She over-analyzes everything. Nugget doesn't seem to be interested in figuring things out, beyond "what does it do and how do I make it go?"
Toddler Daughter was a thinker. Toddler Nugget is a doer.
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Daughter came home from nursery school (Montessori) one day in the late '70s, and mentioned something that had happened, "...and I felt like I had a bare behind."
I asked, "Do you mean you were embarrassed?"
"Yes." she said, "But you told me not to say that word."
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