Learning the "Little" Things

Learning the Alphabet
Eating his alphabet pasta, Bud says, "Mom, look. If I bite off the Q's tail, it's an O."

He is also learning his sign language letters: "If you make a '2' and put them [your fingers] down, it's an "n." If you make a '1' and put it down, it's a 't." If you make a '3' and put them down, it's an 'm.'" Sis is only interested in the "t" right now. This morning, his interest in sign language letters led to a request for things that begin with "n" and I realized that, after the first several obvious ones, I was coming up with things like "novice" and "nocturnal." I think I need to find some more alphabet books!

Counting
We love to count. And to add, if adding is moving one M&M or Skittle from one pile to another and saying, "1 and 1 is two M&Ms!" but they've gotten up towards 6+1=7, as long as there is enough candy. Sis likes to count on her fingers, insisting on counting off her nightly happy thoughts on her hands; luckily when one happy thought includes more than one item, such as when she lists Gommie and Pop together, she doesn't need to add two fingers--we would be there all night. Bud likes to count his Chinese numbers on his fingers, which progress differently than English numbers because of the way Chinese characters look (hard to explain, but you hold your hand sideways, and 3 looks like a sidways gesture for "okay" because the character for "san" is three dashes.).

Telling Time
Bud is obsessed with telling time. Always, when he sees a clock, but only clock faces, not digital ones, he asks me what time it is. And he likes to wait for the "ticker," or second hand, to reach the top--when he knows it changes--and ask me again.

There still isn't much concept of the length of time, it being such an abstract concept. From minutes to years, the kids can barely keep them straight. "Is it tomorrow?" Sis just asked me. We try to describe it concretely: tomorrow is after we sleep tonight, Christmas comes when it is winter which is after fall; dinner will be ready in the amount of time it takes to watch "Caillou." That actually doesn't help much--not because we don't watch tv around dinner, but because they always confuse breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But they are starting to understand the difference between a snack and a meal.

Tying Shoes
I had a dickens (or should that be capitalized out of respect?) learning to tie shoes (and, also to tell time and tell left from right). But the kids, who both have velcro shoes, love to tie knots in strings and try to tie bows. But since neither one of them can, which is fine, I spend a lot of time unknotting my shoes, apron strings, my yarn, and the like.

Right or Left
Sis is intrigued with right and left. As a confirmed left-hander (she has always shown a preference; Bud switches back and forth, mainly because he watches her, but is right-handed), this no doubt will be a lifetime obsession--scissors, places at restaurant tables, whatever else. But, oddly, she likes doing things for her right side--shoes, jacket arms--first, and already seems to know which is her right and which is her left.