Breakfast cardiovascular workout.

[rivka]

Heart-pounding exercise #1: lifting UP. Alex still eats baby oatmeal for breakfast, the kind where you measure out spoonfuls of dry cereal and mix them with an equal quantity of milk. It used to be five tablespoons; now that her interest in oatmeal is beginning to wane, it's four.

I always count the spoonfuls of cereal out loud as they go into the bowl. When I went down to four spoonfuls (several weeks ago) and started stopping the count at four, Alex started saying "five!" at the end. I thought it was cute. I also thought, "Hee! If I were one of those crazy mothers, I would run and tell everyone 'my baby can count!' But obviously, she's memorized the word I used to say at the end of oatmeal measuring."

This morning, I measured out four spoonfuls of oatmeal, counting them. Alex added, "five!"

"That's right," I said cheerfully. "Five is the next number."

And Alex said, "six!"

Holy shit.

Hey, everyone! My baby can count!My baby has begun to recognize that number words occur in a particular sequence!

Heart-pounding exercise #2: crashing DOWN. Breakfast over, I unlatched Alex's highchair tray and carried it into the kitchen. Then I heard a little voice behind me: "Black! Black!"

Now, what do we have at breakfast that's black? I wondered. And then I realized. And broke all previous land-speed records getting back into the dining room, where Alex was happily brandishing the black-handled knife I used to cut up her strawberries.

"No! No!" I yelled. And then, when the knife was safely on the table and Alex was obviously fine: "Yes, the knife is black. But it's also sharp. Not safe for babies. Not safe for babies. Not safe for babies."

"Black," Alex agreed.

Comments

[going-not-gone.livejournal.com]

Your baby is brilliant.

Time to review the child-proofing protocols. Again. Brilliant kids are more dangerous than dumb ones.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Funny you should say that. Any ideas about how to attach a baby gate to a soft plaster wall? We had it just pushed through and anchored by the bannister, but now Alex has figured out how to tilt it up and crawl under.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

What kind of baby gate is it? We got the swinging kind that screws into the wall. Jeff anchored a piece of wood to the banisters, and attached the gate to that. If you give a few more details, I'll run the engineering by Jeff.

The other day, Henry calmly picked up a straight pin that I must have dropped the night before, and handed it to me. Thankfully, he's so proud of his "sharing" abilities that if I'm nearby, he hands things to me instead of sticking them in his mouth. Yeah, heart attack.

[thette.livejournal.com]

I read that as "any ideas about how to attach a baby to a soft plaster wall?" and thought that it sounded like a radical, but effective, method. I need sleep.

[redbird23.livejournal.com]

Ok, the knife thing had MY heart pounding! But how wonderful that she's focused enough on colors that you were able to realize just from her words what she was doing!

And the counting is wonderful! All the small children I know have been fascinated with repetition and sequences.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

She's obsessed with colors. She spends a lot of her playtime identifying the colors of things around her. That, and body parts. Most of our conversations these days have me saying, "Yes, that's red... yes, that is your knee..."

I suppose that no one ever said that smart = interesting. ;-)

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

Not right now, but I think it means you get to have interesting conversations sooner.

Last night when I got home, Baz was still awake. He told me that he was going to go see Grammama's mommy (true) in "Californica" (true). He told me that he had gone poop in the potty (true and very praiseworthy). He told me that we needed to go get new kitties so daddy wouldn't be said. He told me everyone he played with at daycare, and he asked me how my day at "Mikosaw" was. He said that he didn't eat a very good dinner, and we discussed the fact that although his dinner was shaped like dinosaurs, it was made of chicken, and was, therefore good for him. He said he made stripes on his ice cream with chocolate syrup and "shrawserry" syrup.

Conversation! And it all started with endless repetitions of "yes, mommy's nose. yes, Baz's nose."

[fairoriana.livejournal.com]

Wow. Wow for how brilliant your daughter is. And wow for how scary the knife incident must've been. Eek!

Black and Sharp

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

It's another step to understand that objects can have multiple attributes.

B

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

Oy! I have lots of these stories from my toddler-rearing days, but I don't think I wrote them as well. :-)

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

*chuckle* Except that yours speaks much more clearly, that sounds like a morning with David. Soon you'll be able to hand her a bowl and a wooden spoon and have her stir pancake batter for you.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

My daughter began counting like this. "One! Ah! ah! ah!" "Two! Ah! ah! ah!" and so forth. It took me perhaps half a minute before I realized that she had picked it up from The Count on Sesame Street.

K. [I told this story at her wedding]

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, that's adorable.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I told this story at her wedding

And you survived?

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I haven't any idea what your comment is supposed to mean.

K.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

It's the sort of thing that parents find cute and the objects of those stories find extremely embarassing...

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

The son of a friend learned to count backwards by watching the microwave. He also learned that the number after (before) one is "beeep".

[ailbhe]

Urple. Shark knives are one of the hazards that increases hugely when my in-laws are around. Have lots of sympathy.

(And you know, practically everyone who doesn't keep themselves firmly in check would call that counting. I'm going to tell Rob that Alex is counting, when he gets home.)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Rob knows who Alex is?

Technically, knowing the names of the numbers and the order they come in is just part of counting. You also need to know:

1. that when you're counting objects, the highest number you get to = the total number there are.

2. that each object in an array is only counted once.

3. that wherever you start counting, you reach the same total.

4. that no matter what you're counting, counting itself happens in the same way.

Alex repeated the trick for Michael this evening, with peas. I started counting them and she added "five, six." But she couldn't answer the question "how many peas are there?", and so she isn't really counting.

[ailbhe]

Yes, he does, and we start saying "has started counting!" with excited voices when the number-recital happens. Um, except in children who have been formally taught it by rote, because that isn't as exciting. (OK, yes, we say "but she's only counting numbers, not *really* counting" too, but first we go all squee).

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

She's a genius! Okay, she's a smartypants. And needs to figure out 'sharp' before she cuts off her clever little fingers.

[aloha-moira.livejournal.com]

I agree with ailbhe - she's totally counting. :)

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow... who needs coffee with pleasant surprises and horrendous scares?

(I say this, knowing full well that you don't *drink* coffee, IIRC.)

[juthwara.livejournal.com]

Knife - eek! And I had just recovered from the toddler-cat incident over here when I read your hair-raising story. I think sometimes toddlers are Nature's way of ensuring that we regain our pre-pregnancy figures. Who needs dieting and aerobics when you have the heart-stopping 100 yard mad-dash to prevent your child from killing herself?

And Alex is clearly brilliant (and cute!), admittedly for relative toddler-related values of brilliant that don't include any sense of self-preservation. :)

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Nice icon! I don't think I saw this one earlier, the first time I read this post. Is it one you've created in the past few days?