Milestones: Sounds and Spelling

As previously reported here, Elaine is moving across the floor of our house. She has mastered the "commando scoot" and gets where she wants to go. Some milestones of the girls...

Elaine (8 1/2 months)

Likes to:

• Grab cords, ribbons, necklaces, the cat, and the computer mouse
• Grab mouths
• Look at pictures in board books
  
• Play peek-a-boo with mommy
• Say "dada" to daddy
• Say "pbbbthm" for mommy

Is learning to:

• Use a sippy cup (still a ways off)
• Wave hello/goodbye
  
• Eat more varieties of soft foods
• Turn pages in board books (often backwards)
  

Elaine has begun to play peek-a-boo with her mom. She will lift the blanket over her own head, and pull it back and wait for us to say "peek-a-boo!" She does this several times with the biggest grin. We also noticed today that she's definitely making a specific sound for her mom. It doesn't really sound like "mama," but one can imagine it as the result of an attempt on the 'M' sound. What is unmistakable is that it is used to refer to her mommy and nothing else.

Meredith (4 1/4 years)

Likes to:

• Draw and tell stories
• Listen to the Beach Boys on the iPod
• Watch "Super Why" on PBS
• Look at books about everything
• Talk to grandparents on the phone and via web-cam

Is learning to:

• Write and sound out words
• Keep dangerous "toys" from her little sister
• Get into the holiday spirit with songs and stories about Santa Claus
• Sort of tell time (a 5 and two zeros on the digital clock is five o'clock)

Meredith recently wanted to spell and write out the word "salmon." (We were putting together our grocery list.) I asked her to sound it out. She decided the first letter was 'S' and wrote that letter down after a few tries. She then, with minimal prompting from me, sounded out the rest of the word correctly with the aid from me telling her that an 'L' was hiding right after the 'A'. She initially thought the last letter was an 'M' but then agreed it must be an 'N.' The end result was the perfectly written word. Several hours later on the way to the store with her mom, she decided to spell the word aloud. The first time she reversed the 'L' and the 'M' but then corrected herself on her own.

This is just the beginning of writing and reading. It is exciting to see Meredith start to put her knowledge together. We'll have a bookworm on our hands before we know it. Even now, Meredith will secretly turn on her bedroom light to look at books. (Sometimes to draw too.)

Meredith is looking forward to Christmas, but it seems she's looking even more forward to seeing both sets of grandparents in the coming weeks. Tonight she told me Santa Claus brings toys to good boys and girls on Christmas Eve and that Santa knows if you are bad or good, but only on Christmas Eve because that is when he is in the sky and able to see you. When I questioned this, she was insistent that Santa can only keep tabs on us during this one day. She's four years old and already she knows better than her dad on every issue she deems.