Things We're Learning

As it is back-to-school season, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about all of the learning that is going on around here, even though we aren't in school. At least not yet - Zeke is on a waiting list for an awesome preschool, and hopefully there will be a spot for him soon.

Zeke is learning his alphabet, and starting to understand that letters make words. We are working on letter and number recognition (not specifically reading yet), but he has started to ask 'What's this word?' occasionally. He also loves to sing and has spent this week memorizing the songs played on Nora's new toy smartphone and singing storybook. Learning to catch with Grandma is a two-for-one in the learning department; he's learning physical skills and grammar at the same time as we talk about 'caught' being the right way to say 'catched'. (English is tricky, eh?)

Another thing Zeke does all the time that cracks me up is compare things. He is all the time saying 'This is like....' or 'I am like....'. Some recent favorites are 'I am like a car wash' as we were washing his hair in the bathtub and 'I'm like the dragon' as he tries to fly by jumping around.

Nora is learning and growing so fast these days. Her walking skills get better daily, and this week she has also started standing up from sitting without pulling up on something. She claps her hands (lots of fun in the bathtub) and she is showing that she knows more than her hands are coordinated to do, like playing with her puzzles or trying to put the lid back on my water bottle.

Nora is also showing signs that those first words are on the horizon as she babbles sounds that sometimes sound remarkably like phrases. She loves to look at pictures of kids (preferably herself and Zeke, but really any kids will do) and gets excited when the blog/camera/cellphone shows pictures and rather upset when the pictures go away. She loves books and it just melts my heart when she comes toddling over to me, book in hand, to sit on my lap and read.