Letters from my Lovely

Watching your child learn truly is a wonderful experience...even if this includes learning how to empty cupboards or flush mystery objects down the toilet. Seeing their achievements make all the sleepless nights, barf showers, and conveyor belts of dirty diapers so worth it. When they learn how to smile it is amazing as suddenly this demanding, often disgruntled little munchkin has a way to show approval... to let you know they are doing well.. that, as a parent,  you are doing well. They also have the ability to turn normally rational, reasonable adults into high pitched, singing, dancing, raspberry blowing, wide eyed, smiling circus performers which, for other adults, can be fun to watch. Iz was pretty kind to us and decided to be an early smiler (although they were rare and boy did she make us work for them). Luckily the folks at the passport office are lenient with babies as she decided to smile or her first passport picture.
 This is our girl at 10 days old...

Say CHEEEESE

It is wonderful to be able to teach something... to share some knowledge or wisdom with your little one. Listening to Izzy parrot what I say... which seems to often be 'oh dear' or 'mess' is fabulous. I am, however,  often reminded by my gran that toddlers' minds are like sponges in case Izzy picks up some bad language from me... but I swear that really is just the way she says 'fork!!!' Lately Iz has also taken it upon herself to meld the words thank you and mommy together (really this is not my doing...consciously anyway) so I get all the credit for every nice thing her dad does. I figure she is probably playing catch up for her pre verbal days and should be done thanking me some time around her 37th birthday.

As great as teaching can be, the best moments for me are watching my kids figure something out without my help. There are the big ones like crawling and walking, which although often helped along by parents, are very much up to a child to figure out. There are also the smaller, less noticeable 'eureka' moments that pass without so much fanfare. To others they may seem trifling, but to me they are wonderful.  For example a month or two ago I was sitting on the bed with Izzy when she started to cover one eye, then the other, back a forth. It only lasted a few seconds and off she went to eat something or draw on something, but to see her figure out, without explanation from me or anyone, that yup those eye things work... and not only that, they each work separtely was just wonderful. A few days later she worked out that covering her ears made sounds go away. This was particularly special to me as I can recall doing the same thing whenever my mum would use the vacuum cleaner- I guess I liked the woooom wooom sound it made. The same can be said for when children learn to drop things on the floor...or as we like to call it in our house 'training adults to fetch'. As annoying as picking something up repeatedly can be, discovering the forces that act on your world is an important and considerable task. Watching these small discoveries makes it hard not to think, at least for a short while, how amazing supposedly simple things actually are.

Recently, at the grand old age of 19 months, our girl decided to surprise us with her smarts. She had learned almost all the letters in the alphabet without us knowing. She and I were sitting drawing pictures, well I was...she was mostly alternating between drawing circles and eating her crayon. I drew an apple and next to it wrote the letter 'A'. Iz looked for a moment and said 'A' sporting a big smile. I figured it's a common letter...and the first letter.. maybe it was coincidence. Next I drew a butterfly and the letter 'B'... she pondered for a moment and then said 'B'. Maybe she had learned the alphabet song- we sing and sign it with her pretty often...even more so since she learned to say and sign the dreaded  'again.' I decided to be sneakier... to try the letters out of order. I drew a snake and the letter 'S'. Sure enough, without a pause, came the 'S' sound. I decided enough with the pictures, I would just try the letters on their own. Over the next minute I tried the entire alphabet in jumbled order and barring a few long pauses, and a loss of interest or 2 on her part, she identified around 20 letters correctly. A couple of the mistakes - such as mistaking 'N' for 'Z' were actually due to the angle she was looking from. I was proud, and shocked, in equal measure. I am not sure when most kids learn their letters but I was impressed nonetheless. I hadn't gone out of my way to teach them to her- somewhere between signing, singing and 'superwhy' she had figured them out for herself. To me at least that is a pretty big deal. We have since started working on phonics and numbers. She can now count to 10... but apparently doesn't like 7..which is understandable, I mean after all ...............7,8,9!

(Sorry I cannot take credit/ censure for that joke- it was borrowed from my father in law when we told him the story).