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Saturday, December 05, 2009

Counting’s not silly

Recently Rachel mastered how to show the number two with her fingers—like the peace sign. She’s very proud of this. She also can make a three, only she uses her pinky, ring, and middle finger for some reason. She’ll show anyone who will look.

And if you’re lucky, she might even count for you. This is a real treat.

She can count to eleven. Almost.

“One, two, three, four, five…seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven!”

Sometimes she’ll go beyond eleven, if she’s feeling particularly numbery, like this evening.

“One, two, three, four, five…seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven…nine…fifteen…seven…twenty…six…eleven…twelve…thirnine…”

Are.You.Serious? Thirnine!

Andrew and I cracked up.

“HEY!” she yelled defensively, “I’m just counting! Counting is not silly!”

We laughed harder.

“I’m in charge of laughing! Stop laughing! I’m in charge of laughing and counting is not silly!”

You’d think the child was against being silly, but she’s not. Quite the opposite, actually—she does several silly things every day. She encourages silliness and can’t wait for Miriam to act silly along with her.

She thought Miriam looked a little bored a few days ago (Miriam was sleeping. Surprised?) so she built a fort for the two of them by throwing a blanket over Miriam’s play mat—it has a crossbar of sorts to hang toys from and Rachel discovered it makes the perfect frame for a little tent.

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Miriam slept while Rachel crawled all around her, encouraging her to wake up and play. Rachel can’t understand how Miriam sleeps so much (actually, neither can I, but I don’t mind it).

This morning she climbed into our bed with Miriam and started singing to her to the tune of C is for Cookie.

“Cookies start with A….No! Cookies, cookies, cookies start with C! Mem [Miriam] starts with M! I [Rachel] starts with R! I love Baby Mem!”

Switching to Braham's Lullaby she continued,

“Lullaby! Close your eyes!”

And then losing her patience she got down in Miriam’s face and yelled sweetly,

“ Now it's time went awake! Why are you sleeping?!”

My question for Rachel is: why were you singing her lullabies if you wanted her to wake up?

Another thing Rachel takes seriously is colouring. We made some “stained-glass windows” a few days ago by gluing string to pieces of cardboard, covering the cardboard with tinfoil, and then colouring each shape with a permanent marker.

I was a little nervous about handing anything labeled “permanent” to her, but we had a long talk about it beforehand and she was very mature about the whole process. She hardly ever went out of the lines! I was impressed.

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Don’t ask about her goofy smiles. I don’t know how she comes up with some of the faces she pulls…just silly, I guess.

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