Alphabet Boy.

Over a month ago I needed to distract Eli while out and about so I had him try this alphabet app on my phone. It shows a variety of letters and asks you to point to a certain letter. I just needed a minute so I figured he would just like looking at the letters. But lo and behold, the kid started pointing to the letters. The RIGHT letters! I sat there sort of dumb-founded. And then I thought "I must be a bad mom for not knowing he could and should be learning the alphabet." Whoops. I guess these are some of the issues when he's got no daycare plus a first-time-raising-a-kid mom.

I'm not sure how or why he learned his letters so quickly but he did. And now he knows the whole alphabet, with just a few mix-ups. He also knows some phonetics for a few letters. If you say "go find me a T", he'll say "Tee" then "Tuh Tuh". Craziness. Our little man may be behind in some other developmental ways, but he's got letters down (well, he knows them but still can't say them all). We have a few Leap Frog toys that I think have really helped this out... plus we have read to him a crazy amount since birth.

I think he's just going to keep surprising us each week. It's quite enjoyable as a parent. A few weeks ago he exploded with knowing loads of animal names and corresponding sounds (his monkey is hilarious). Last week Greg taught him his shapes. Now I can say "circle" and the kid knows what I'm talking about. A few days ago he learned to speak "no" which has been interesting to have in conversation. He also learned to say "Elmo" and now considers (or wishes) all things on the television to be so. And a couple days ago he said his name for the first time.

Playing with the letter toy my sister bought for Maelee.

I'm having a blast with this guy! It's hard to believe we are almost done counting in months for him. It really is remarkable what these little beings accomplish in a years time. Last year at this time he still couldn't crawl!

-Heather