The Hidden Talents of Tala!

A couple of days ago, Tala showed me the calendar she got from Friends 2B Made and she said, "Look Mom, I circled the day of my birthday, August 26." So I asked her to circle Juju's birthday, June 28. Notice the numbers of both my girls' birthdays, 8/26 and 6/28. So, Tala started flipping the pages in the calendar starting with December going backwards in the months. She kept saying, "This is not it," for every page she flipped till she got to June when she said "Here it is!" I was surprised, "She could read!" I thought to myself. I mentioned that to her teacher the next day, and the teacher told me that they have noticed it too; Sol did too.

Tala has always taken us by surprise when it comes to her development and the things she could do. It's always been, Tala can't do this yet, Tala can do it very well. We don't witness the development stages she goes through with her skills. I remember when she was about 2 years old, she wasn't a toddler of many words. She would only say a couple words or so. It's not that she tried talking and didn't know how to; she was not talking at all--very quiet. We had her tested then for any developmental delays, and she qualified for speech therapy; so we started her on a program that involved speech therapy and music therapy sessions at home. Speech therapy is straight forward; music therapy was very interesting. The therapist would come home with all kinds of musical instruments, guitar, keyboard, maraca, flute, etc., and would spend an hour with Tala playing music and singing together. On her next evaluation at 3, Tala passed ranking very high in the speech scale compared to her peers. It was as if somebody pushed Tala's talk button!

This brings me to another story. Tala had always showed her artistic talent on the walls. Moody, on the other hand, never did that, not even once. I was constantly cleaning and wiping walls after Tala, till I decided I was not going to do it anymore. I thought clean walls were what invited her to fill them with art. Last year, I went over the basement walls with the paint to cover Tala's art. It was around December of 2004. There was this tiny little guy she drew on the wall that I didn't have the heart to cover. So, I left it there. That guy has been a source of laughter for us. Again, last December, I retouched the basement walls and left that little dude there. It's too cute to wipe out!

Here's another proof of Tala's talent. This picture is of Picasso's Summer Bouquet painting. Tala decided that Picasso fell short and his painting needed more work. She added a face with eyes, mouth and nose at the bottom of the painting. It's in faint red crayon. Luckily, it could be wiped out since the painting is coated with a protecting material, but again, I didn't have the heart to do it!

Our friends from Canada are coming to spend this long weekend and celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Day with us. We're excited and can hardly wait for their arrival. Moody had been wondering what they would bring him this time, but last night he told Sol, "I don't care what they bring me, I'm just happy they're coming." That's the spirit, I'd say!

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