Things I Learned...

things i learned this week:

1. bean loves letters, especially the first letter of her name. when she sees it she will say "E! E is for (her real name), e is for elephant, e is for egg!" the book "there is a monster at the end of this book" has some very large type in it. when she sees these bigger letters she will tell you what they are. "look mommy, E! another E mommy! that is a T!"

2. she recognizes her name when she sees it spelled out. my husband was drawing on the magnadoodle and asking her what the pictures were of. she was doing a great job despite her daddy's questionable artistic skills. he thought he'd trick her by writing her name. she glanced at the magnadoodle and said "that's (insert her name)!" then she proceeded to spell it for him while pointing at the letters.

3. she is now interested in what things say and/or spell. she will point to the words in books and say "what that say mommy??" if i write a word on the refrigerator she come over and ask "what that spell??" it is fun. :)

4. bean thinks that she can spell now too. she will go to the refrigerator and move letters and numbers around and tell me what she has just spelled. today she spelled dog: 2-2-5-upside down 3. HA! yesterday it was cat: h-s-w-7-j-0. it is just SO awesome that she understands that words are made of letters at her age! now if i can just get her to realize that numbers do not make words. ;)

5. she is a big girl. she can run and kick a ball at the same time with surprisingly good rhythm. i watch her and think, where did she learn that??

6. when i child says they don't want to try rice... don't make them. she put it into her mouth swallowed and then started gagging. lets just say all of dinner and some of lunch ended up on her dinner plate! ugg! she didn't puke again and we aren't sure why she did it but... UGG! thank god my husband actually helped clean it up!

lastly, what i know. this week was rough at times. the past couple of years with bean have had extreme ups and downs. i know i haven't done everything "right". but i know that i did it the best i could. and that is ok, bean doesn't expect us to be perfect. and when i comes right down to it, i think we've done alright. this was totally confirmed last night. when we were putting bean to bed she rolled on to her side and looked up at her father and i. my hand was on the crib rail, she reached up and touched my fingers and said "i love you so much guys!" then cuddled back down into her pillow. sigh. nothing will ever feel as good as that.