A few days ago Uly and I sat on the floor together and worked on sorting shapes. He especially likes circles, which I will elaborate on later. You would have to have met him to appreciate completely the dear expression on his face when he's concentrating this hard. His lips halfway form the letter "O" and pooch out a bit, and his brows are furrowed so close and down you'd think he had only one. It's SO cute. I'll try and get a picture someday--if I'm lucky enough to get the camera on without distracting him.

Anyhow, so we're sorting shapes, and he's thinking really hard. He approaches each one the same way; pick it up, turn it around in his hands and examine with intense concentration, and then start by trying to stick it in the circle hole. If that doesn't work, look at mommy to get encouragement, then try the square hole or the triangle hole. If those don't work (because he didn't turn it in his hand enough) look at mommy, sigh, and then take the lid off the container and stick the piece in it that way. Sooo much easier...

Now, back to circles. Uly loves to color. He especially loves to do this in front of the computer while listening to his favorite songs which currently are: Don't Know why--Nora Jones sings to Elmo on Sesame Street, ABCD's with India on Sesame Street, and the reigning favorite (I kid you not), Rhue Sanft Mein Holdes Leiben sang by Natalie Dessay (from the opera Zaide). We listen to these songs over and over and over and over and over again while coloring circles on paper. He LOVES this. Sometimes he wants me to make circles all over the place and he points to where he wants me to draw them. Sometimes that means making circles inside other circles. He has me do this until I cannot draw them any smaller. I wonder why he likes this so much but I'm sure I'll never find out.


Letters and Numbers

Uly doesn't talk much, but he understands a lot more than I often give him credit for. Sometimes I swear he's "playing dumb", which all smart people do in order to get out of having to do stuff, or avoid getting into trouble for not having done it. But one thing is certain--he likes to show off what he knows when it comes to the alphabet and numbers. We have an Obama sign in the front of our house and if you ask him where the letters "B", "M" and "A" are he will point to them for you. He is still puzzled by "O", I think because he doesn't understand how it can be both a circle and a letter--but again, I'll probably never know. He can do a few numbers this way, too.

Boy do I love this kid. Now if only he would stop cutting teeth and let me get some sleep at night... haha