Caleb Catch-up

Even before Hadley was born, I wanted to write a post about the new things Caleb was learning and doing. One thing after another kept coming up and I always had another topic that I blogged about instead. This post is probably for me more than it is for my readers because I want to remember all the things he can do at this age that are special to me. I wish I had time to document everything and hold on to each step of the journey, but there's never enough time. Less is more though sometimes, and I'm sure I'll treasure the details that I am able to capture all the more. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this catch-up post with updates and pictures from the past year and a half.

All children's minds are like sponges, but I think Caleb's is an extra absorbent one. Don't get me wrong; I'm not taking credit or bragging about anything we've done to give him such a hunger for learning. God alone has made him the sharp fella that he is. Not only have we been amazed at our son, but others have commented on his elephant-like memory and his ability to pick up so many details from what's going on around him and remember them. He doesn't just give vague recollections of things that he remembers either; Caleb is a detail oriented boy, giving excellent descriptions. I think I am most blown away when he randomly brings up something that happened last summer or spring when he had only just turned two. I can't believe he can remember those events! For example, a couple of weeks ago, he started talking about a snake my parents killed at their house last summer and even remembered the details of where they put it. Knowing he remembers experiences so well makes me want to take him out to try even more new things. 

That memory has come in handy for learning too. For well over a year now, Caleb has shown interest in the alphabet. I'm not sure exactly what sparked the interest, but one of the first times I remember him interacting with letters was during his bath time. He wanted to talk about the letters on Dave's shirt and remembered what many of them were called after being told. My mom purchased a set of Sesame Street alphabet flashcards that I used to further introduce more letters. To my surprise, he picked them up quicker than I expected. I didn't force him to learn the letters or drill him a ton, but we would take a few minutes here and there to look at them until he got bored and then moved on to play something else. By two months shy of his second birthday, he could already identify somewhere around half the letters.  

Granny gave him an easel with some magnet alphabet letters, Aunt Amy and Uncle Keith sent him a letter puzzle, and Grandma and Grandpa McKinstry bought him some alphabet books which were other great tools for working with letters in a fun way. For one of my baby showers, someone bought Hadley a set of  foam letters to play with in the tub (which Caleb opened before she was even born I believe), and we have used those to talk about letters during bath time sometimes too. Online games and YouTube videos have even been a good resource. Letter talk opportunities just pop up everywhere really though. It's fun to teach kids using impromptu opportunities in unstructured settings where they just soak up so much from the world around them. By Christmas, Caleb knew all the letters and even begun talking about the sounds they make! 

Making letters with Play Doh

Even his Clifford sippy cup provided an opportunity to talk about letters one day.

At first, he showed little interest in learning the actual alphabet song though. When I heard one of his same age playmates singing it a year ago or so, I initially thought to myself that I should be teaching it to Caleb. After trying a few times, I decided that as long as he is learning the letters and what sounds they make that was great for the time being. I was sure he'd get the song mastered before anyone would ask him to alphabetize anything. :) About two months ago though, he took and an interest now he wants to sing it all the time.

Since Caleb has such a good memory, I started working with him a little on sight words too. I didn't really plan to do this, but my mom had some books designed to teach beginning readers sitting in her van a few months ago that we started to look through while waiting for my granddad to get out of the dentist. To entertain Caleb, I introduced him to a couple of the books and a few words - "I" and "like" in particular. The books were patterned so it would have been very easy for him to just repeat the same phrase on each page. (Ex: I like red. I like blue. I like...) To prevent this, I slowed him down and made him pay attention to each individual word. I even asked him to look for the same sight words in other books. Later in the week, I would write the words or find them in his other books and ask him again what the word was. To my delight, he remembered!

Colors and shapes were mastered some time before his second birthday I think, but numbers have been a struggle. He's been very inconsistent with this skill, being able to say his numbers without error one time and then jumbling them the next. Just within the past few weeks, after working with him repeatedly, Caleb has finally started remembering to say the number six when he counts to ten. Even now there are still times when he skips it, but at least at this point he can correct himself when I comment that he's made a mistake. With the way he remembers other things, I'm surprised to see numbers giving him trouble. While he doesn't always say the numbers in order though, he does demonstrate adding skills already. For example, my Granny told him there was a mouse behind her couch to keep him from going back there. He told her that he put two more mice behind the couch so now there are three!

Can you tell he likes Play Doh? 

Having fun with numbers

It is no wonder that Caleb learns many things so quickly though. Whenever we have a chance to sit down and read together, Caleb wants to read book after book after book. Clifford, Berenstain Bears, Little Critter, Dr. Suess, Eric Carle, and Golden books are all frequented texts in our household, but he really enjoys a variety, including non-fiction books that spark more questions than we can ever answer. We signed up for the summer reading club at the library this past week. The requirement for a prize is reading five books per week; by the end of the second day, I had already logged TWENTY for this kid. Some of them we read and logged multiple times, but you get the picture - he loves to read!

Even more than reading books, Caleb LOVES workbooks. Usually, I have to limit how many workbooks we can look at before naps or bed times because he just wants to keep going. His favorite activity pages seem to be the ones where you have to find something wrong with the picture, one picture that is different from the others or objects hidden in a scene. Flipping through from page to page trying to decide what tasks are age appropriate, I am often surprised that he can do so many more of them than I expect. 

Sticker books are also high on the list - in particular some books that I picked up for a dollar a piece on different subjects like dinosaurs, space machines, trucks and tractors, reptiles and birds, etc. The books are full of facts and colorful pictures on each page that Caleb examines closely and asks question after question about. Most kids would probably be so hung up on the stickers that they'd ignore the info, but not this boy. Even after the stickers are all used up, he keeps bringing us the books to study the facts and learn a little more. He doesn't quickly forget what we've read either and comprehends quite a bit. We sit for well over an hour at times going through activity books and reading together. The great thing is that he can even sit for a while if I need to put Hadley down for a nap or something and entertain himself with them.

Granny told me one day that my cousin Philip got a kick out of the way Caleb talks for his age. He commented something like, "Caleb doesn't talk like we do, Granny. He uses good grammar." Granny responded that his mother IS an English teacher, but in all honesty I don't think I can take the credit. I use Appalachian English like the best of them and can already hear my preschooler twanging up a lot of his words, which I know didn't come from his daddy. Here is a video I captured of him making a couple one syllable words into two syllable ones:

Not only is he picking up the country twang, there are so many phrases and colloquialisms I hear him use all the time that I can pinpoint exactly where he's heard them. Some of the most common ones he uses lately are a dramatic "Oh my!" when something goes wrong or "what are you thinking; I don't know what you was thinking" when you get mixed up or say something silly. He usually remembers where he learns new words or phrases too. Sometimes he'll tell me he heard something on a TV show and other times from a family member. One day he was talking about some of his toys "going to sleepytown." Since that's not something we say around here, I asked who he'd heard say that before. He remembered Granny was the one who uses "sleepytown." Once he told me, I could remember her saying it a few times too. Whether he's repeating something he's heard or coming up with something totally new, he is definitely a talker. Sometimes I get in trouble for tuning him out because he talks so much that sometimes I lose focus. I remember when he was first developing his vocabulary how much I loved to hear big words come out of his little mouth. Here are two videos both taken last summer when he was only two of him tackling some bigger vocabulary. In the first he says "spiderweb" and in the second "pepperoni."

Enough about all the learning for now. Let's talk about his interests.

One of Caleb's favorite activities lately is cooking/baking. He even loves to sit with my mom and look through cookbooks and Paula Dean magazines.When I offer him special time with Dave or me, he usually responds that he would like to make some type of dessert - brownies, a cake, cobbler, etc. Often Dave is his cooking partner of choice, and it makes me smile to see my boys in the kitchen. A lot of times we have to wait until Hadley's in bed before we start which can be somewhat problematic, because by the time the dessert is done baking, it is very close to bed time and I don't really want him to have anything sweet. We've had a few late nights as a result, but it's unfair to let him wait in anticipation for that yummy creation to bake and then make him wait until morning.

Making a breakfast casserole

We love  blackberry cobbler!

My dad has a method though that doesn't create this conflict - making pancakes together. Twice recently, he cut up strawberries and blueberries and let Caleb help mix up the batter and cook some flap jacks. You can tell by this little boy's face and special care that he's loving it! (Hadley loved helping him eat them!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong, while reading and baking are fun, like any boy he loves to wrestle, play outside, and check out things that are gross. He also enjoys helping fix things with tools any time there's an opportunity. While he is one of the best snugglers ever, he can be rambunctious at times too. We've ended up in the ER, Urgent Care, and doctor's office a few times this past year as a result. Just a little over a week ago, we spent three hours at Urgent Care getting his knee x-rayed and examined and then made an ER trip that evening to get a cast for his knee after a encounter with the sidewalk. Most things don't keep him down for long though, and often the injury looks worse to us than it seems to be to him. I knew once he learned to walk he'd hit the ground running, and ever since then we've been trying in vain to get this little man to slow down. That's just part of who he is!

Dinosaurs make everything better for this kid!

He wanted to sit beside all his "friends."

The "friends" also had to come with us for breakfast at Granny's.

As far as interests go, you can probably tell from some of my recent posts that dinosaurs are among the top of the list. While Thomas and friends are still at favorites, they seem to be getting a lot less attention now days as dinosaur play takes over. Before Hadley's birthday, he even kept insisting that we throw her a dinosaur party (which wouldn't be too far off since she loves playing with them too). He enjoys organizing the dinosaurs by types, making them chase and attack each other, and pretending the dinosaurs are after us. Lately he's been making an "egg" out of pillows and pretending to be a baby dinosaur that hatches.

According to Caleb, these dinosaurs were lined up waiting to get some ham. Later they also wanted deviled eggs and then "normal eggs." Finally, they needed some beef to complete their meal.

Imaginative play is a huge part of our lives these days too. He always impresses me with his creativity. He doesn't even always need a toy to play with and can just sit on the couch and pretend he's fishing or make up a game where we have to catch "pizza pies" that are flying through the air (this was a very entertaining for the ER nurses the other night). What I love most about his pretend play is sitting back listening to the conversations he creates between his toys. He can sit in the tub and jabber for a half hour straight without stopping creating stories between his squirt toy animals.

A couple times recently, he's pretended that this puzzle is a dog cake and cut pieces for all of us to eat.

Painting, Play Doh, Moon Dough, stickers, stamps, and crafting are all activities Caleb enjoys too. We don't do this as much as he'd like because they are hard to do when Hadley's awake and in to everything. Even once she's asleep, I am usually rushing to clean the kitchen or get laundry done before the tornado baby wakes up. I have been trying to carve out the time to do this with him more though; after all, the chores can wait and he'll only be little for a little while.

Finger painting with Daddy - May 2012

I know this post is getting long, but the last thing I want to mention about Caleb is his sense of humor. Of all people, my mom is the one that brings out the best of him in this area. They have so many inside jokes and can have each other giggling out of control. Even as a toddler he could get so tickled over silly things NaNa would say or do, and even a sour mood could be flipped back to sheer joy. He also definitely has my dad's teasing personality and likes to joke and tease in a unharmful fun way. He doesn't really have to try to be funny though. Caleb says some of the most hilarious things without even realizing it, and I know I should be making a running list and recording them daily.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. A blog post just isn't long enough to capture all the specialness of this boy that I'm crazy about. Hopefully within the next week or two I'll get a chance to give you a sneak peak at what my Hadley is up to these days too!