Wicked Smart!

Ok, I have to say it. Felicity is amazingly smart. She is at 21 months now, and has a vocabulary of, I'd say, several hundred words. As I look around the house I'm hard pressed to see something that she doesn't know the name of. She really "gets" language. She has the concept of "one doll, two dolls", and is beginning to learn the alphabet. Today I was doing some ironing while she was around the corner watching a Wiggles video. I noted that as she sang along to the songs, she got out a good majority of the words. I thought it was really weird when she started speaking in sentences at 13 months. But she really hasn't stopped. And I'm finding it easier to believe that when I thought I heard her calling me "Mama, Mama" from about 12 weeks, she actually was.

Last weekend she spotted Erol's old Franciscan University student ID card laying upside down on our hutch. I turned it over and told her that the picture was of "little boy Papa", meaning the picture from 10 years ago made him look so much younger. Two days later, she saw my old Franciscan ID card upside down on the dresser in the bedroom. She pointed and said "little boy Papa!". Mind you, it is just a white card with a bar code on the back, not even a picture to identify it. So of course I told her, no, that's little girl Mama. (Don't ask me why we have these old things laying around the house!)

A Day In the Life

This video captures the essence of many of our days. Kwamai excitedly trying to entertain; Felicity calmly investigating her world.

Kwamai Reads

Kwamai has had some reluctance toward reading. I think it is part his desire to do things perfectly, part my tendency to be impatient with him and part him just not being ready.

But yesterday we set a goal of learning 16 new words by Saturday.

Today I picked up


The Foot Book. With my help along the way, Kwamai read the whole thing! He was extremely pleased with himself. He prefers to read pictures and guess what the word is. But I could tell how much he has learned since the last time we tried this type of "dive in and read" approach.

The moment he finished and we exchanged hoots and high fives, the doorbell rang. It was his neighbor friend who is also learning to read. I sang the praises of Kwamai's accomplishment, and of course he had to show her how much he had learned. He really persevered to read it through again without my help this time. The two of them egg each other on because they like to out-preform each other.

I know this felt really good to him today, and it felt good to Mom too. :)

Visiting the Sisters

We had the great joy to visit the TOR Sisters on Sunday. Kwamai and Felicity had everyone captivated, as usual. And we had a chance to pose for pictures.

The Bloggable Kwamai #2

Kwamai said of his sister: "She is more beautiful than the sea, more beautiful than the sun, she is more beautiful than roses!"

Awwwwww....

What Will the Morning Bring?

Tonight after Kwamai and Felicity were off in slumber land, I took down the Christmas tree. It is the official last day of the Christmas season today, being the feast of the Baptism of Jesus. But, they both loved the tree and the Christmas season. I wonder what the reaction will be?

Select Christmas Pix

Here is Kwamai trying to pick a wrestling fight with Uncle Denis at Grandma's house on Christmas Day.



Here are Felicity and myself getting ready to leave for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. For the record, a few minutes after this picture, she was asleep for the night.

What's New?

Felicity continues to be a little talker. She seems to be expanding her vocabulary at quite a clip. Today, on one of her routine inspections of my cooking, noted that I was making soup, and that I had put walnuts in my salad. Tonight when she was ready for bed and I was chatting away to Kwamai, she announced loudly "Up on the bed!"

She loves music. Besides The Wiggles, she also loves a CD called A Child's Celebration of the World, and she is beginning little by little to sing along. We have music on all day long, especially since she has learned to operate the CD player.

Kwamai and Felicity both like dumping salt on things. Kwamai is better about keeping his concoctions in dishes, while Felicity prefers the bench, floor, her toys, or her hair.

Kwamai is maturing daily. He spends hours doing imaginary play which is obviously deeply complex to him, with certain required clothing (or, sometimes, the lack thereof), and I find he frequently comes out of these play sessions with rather profound spiritual thoughts. He composed an email to Erol today all on his own, and read it back to me. It was brief, but it was all words that made sense. It is interesting that he seems to be learning to write faster than he is learning to read.