Sure makes a reading teacher proud...

Disclaimer: At the end of the day, this blog is by "by us" and "for us".  We LOVE that so many of you have chosen to keep in touch with our family and our lives since Josephine's birth through our blog. We are SOOO happy that you're here. From time-to-time, we realize things may come across in a way that we do not intend. This is one of those posts. We're not trying to say that our daughter is a genius or better than any other kid or any of those other things about braggy parents that annoy all of us. But, we think this is pretty cool, so we're sharing it.  Enjoy! :)

The other day Josie was busily drawing with some chalk on a piece of packaging paper from one of many Amazon.com deliveries while Lou & I watched football.  We were splitting our attention between her & the game, and she was happily entertaining herself.  Then, she started getting more insistent about something she had drawn.  I shifted my attention to her completely as she explained that she had written a word.  I walked over to the paper and saw this:

Then, looking closer I saw a word among the squiggles:

Josie had clearly written a "T" and "O" and what looked like an "N" or a "Z".  I said something along the lines of "OMG, Lou look at this!" and we asked Josie to tell us more.  She told me "T-O" spells "La" which cracked me up because obviously it doesn't.  But, nonetheless, we think it's pretty incredible that the little swaddled bundle we were just cuddling moments ago is already showing signs of "all grown-up."  I'll admit that I've said that each developmental phase has been my favorite, but this really is the best!  Maybe it's the former second grade teacher in me, but watching how her little brain works is just so fascinating and so rewarding.  

Here's a video of another "WOW" moment with her last week.  I was reorganizing her "play zone" (part of a larger condo-wide reorg) with the goal of putting away toys she had outgrown and putting others away that she wasn't quite ready for yet.  She had gotten these Melissa & Doug spelling cards from her Tia & Tio for her 2nd birthday and had only played with them a handful of times since August. I set them on the couch with the other things to put away until she was a little older.  Then, as I'm cleaning, I hear her spelling the words on the cards and walk over to find her tracing the letters with her finger & then reciting the words.  This is not something any of us practice with her regularly with these cards. We do "breakdown" words like this when we read books, but to see her apply this to the cards was really cool to watch. Obviously she's not really "reading" these words because the pictures are there as cues but it's still pretty amazing to see these early reading skills emerge.  Luckily, this went on for several minutes, so I was able to get the camera before she moved on to the next thing. Enjoy!