Simply Amazing

As little J grows, I'm continually amazed at his development - all of the connections going on through that cute, little head of his.  Lately, he's been coming up to me and engaging me with a word, phrase, or song that we haven't talked about or heard for months.  We picked up the book If You Take a Mouse To the Movies a few days ago, and it's become his new favorite.  He's been focusing on one picture where the mouse is running with his hand outstretched... and saying, "mihl... mihl..." (thinking of the ASL sign for "milk").  That's not exceptional in itself since we still talk about signing and he still uses a few every now and then.  Today, though, he signed and said "Milk More" and asked to see the "movie".  He was asking to see a fun signing video on youtube that we hadn't watched in at least five or six months! Amazing!

Over the past few months, J's learned all of the letters of the alphabet (uppercase and lowercase) and can enunciate almost all of their sounds when asked.  He picked all of this up by choosing different letters on starfall.com during teethbrushing sessions (since we still can't get through brushing without an entertaining distraction). I think he can sing the ABC's pretty well, too, but it's not something I ask him to sing/rehearse or anything.  Same with his numbers 1 through 10 (but might skip number 6?).  Sometimes I'll catch him singing to himself while playing independently; sometimes he sings along with me and fills in letters/number if I stop at a certain one. Most of the time, though, he doesn't like for us to sing.  ;P  "NO, Mama, NO... no sinin'!" 

We've always read at least one bedtime story each night - sometimes two or three.  Then, of course, we read throughout the day, too, if he asks.  He probably has at least twenty books that we've read about fifty times each and now sits down and "reads" a few to himself every now and then.  It's so cute to watch him look at the pictures and turn the pages and then to hear his soft voice babble a few words that relate to the storyline for each page.