EVIDENCE NUMBER ONE
So the first story is a little personal to my family. Gulliver loves numbers and letters and we're practicing them all the time. Lately, he's been saying "2.... B.... Y....." And I've thought, "Huh. It's funny that he's mixing them up like that, but who am I to judge?"
Wrong.
The other night, Gulliver was a little more alert than usual as I was getting him ready for bed. Our ritual these days consists of Gulliver almost passing out in my arms as I carry him upstairs to his dark room. Then he cuddles me like that for a while as I rock him and sing to him. So a few nights ago, like I said he wasn't all the way passed out, and I was singing to him our nightly song, which is a Muppets Christmas song that is a family classic, "It's in Every One of Us." The second line of "It's in Every One of Us" is "to be wise." So I sang "tooooooo beeeeeeeee wiiiiiiiiise" and Gulliver sang "tooooooooo beeeeeeeee whyyyyyyyyy." And THEN I realized why Gulliver was putting that number and those letters together! He was singing his bedtime song!
EVIDENCE NUMBER TWO
Speaking of numbers and letters, here's a tally of the numbers and letters that Gulliver says lately:
two (two)
three (tee)
six (seesh)
nine (nine)
thirteen (teetee)
A (aye)
B (bee)
C (occasionally - see)
H (occasionally - aich)
I (aye!)
O (oh)
R (aaaayh)
Y (why)
When we're in the car, I'll often recite the alphabet and wait for him to chime in the letters that he knows. Lately, when I get to X I pause and hear nothing. Then I turn around to make eye contact with him, and he gives me the darlingest smile and says all slyly, "Whyyyyyyyyy." He's a charmer.
EVIDENCE NUMBER 3
A couple weeks ago we were in Home Depot. I heard Gulliver saying, "Oh. Oh. Oh." I looked down, and he was pointing to the O in HOME DEPOT that was written across the handles of the shopping cart. GENIUS!
Later that night, we were shopping at Walmart and I handed him some dish rags that I was going to buy, and I heard him saying, "Nine. Nine. Nine." I looked down and he was pointing at an upside down 6 on the packaging. GENIUS! I flipped the packaging right-side up, and then he also identified the As on the packaging.
EVIDENCE NUMBER 4
Another thing that we say to Gulliver on a regular basis lately is "Where ARE we?" We usually say this when we're almost to Grandma and Grandpa's house, but we also say it when we pull into our house, or if we pull into another exciting destination. Gulliver excitedly repeats, "We wah weee!" Sometimes with extra syllables, like, "Weee wa wa wa wa WAH we?" Well, a few blocks away from G & G's the other day, I asked, "Where are we GOING?" Gulliver thought about it for a moment, and then replied, "Bu pa!!" That's right. We were going to Bu pa's house. (Grandpa is maybe Gulliver's favorite person in the world. Never try to rip him from the arms of Bupa.)
And how is Gulliver going to use his smarts? To become an astronaut.
(Yesterday, Labor Day, Gulliver was DELIGHTED to go outside and discover this flag planted in our front yard. Best. Surprise. Ever.)
