Latest Learnings

My girls have been making me happy lately with all they are taking in.  Of course, children are sponges, and Cate and Charlotte have really been soaking things up.

Charlotte, who has some odd affection for the dishwasher (as seen below), has surprised me with how much she understands.  While she only says a few words--Mama, Dada, hi, bye bye, dog--she gets what I'm saying all the time.  I can be anywhere in the house and if I ask her if she wants milk, she'll immediately go to the fridge and start trying to open the door.  If I tell her it's time to wake Cate up, Charlotte goes right to Cate's room.

We've been working on the names of things, particularly facial features.  I've taught Charlotte eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, chin, and ears by pointing to what they are--real advanced parenting here, I know :)  Today I asked Charlotte to point to my nose AND SHE DID.  Then I asked her to point to my eye...genius child did that too.  I was so happy I screamed!  She's iffy on the mouth and cheeks but I'll take it.  It's probably because she's around a 3 and 1/2-year-old all day, but Charlotte still seems like such the baby to me.  To watch her begin to learn questions and commands is crazy--I love it.

A couple weeks ago I was drying dishes and turned to find this little surprise waiting for me :)

Cate got her first report card from preschool and (gasp!) I had to go to a parent teacher conference to get it.  Cate is doing really well in all areas and is on a 4-year-old level.  The next thing she needs to master is looking at a letter on a piece of paper and, without prompting, say what sound it makes.  She easily identifies all the letters and if you say "what sounds does a T make?" she can tell you.  It's just taking the step from seeing a letter on paper and saying what sound it makes isn't second nature to her yet.

Upon hearing that, Rhett sat down with her last night and, in about five minutes, she had it down ;)  This morning, I used Pinterest for the millionth time and created a little rice tray for her using an old cookie sheet with taped letters to the bottom.  She used a paint brush to "discover" the letters and had to tell me what sound they made as she found them.

Well what do we have here? 

Uncovering some real treasures.

Then, on her own, she decided to trace the alphabet in the rice.

I know this is basic stuff, but it's very rewarding to watch little kids mastering new skills :)