Milestone. So There.

I know parents are mocked for poo posts, but you know what? You never
know what a huge achievement pooping on the potty is until you try to
teach someone else to do it. I can't imagine that high school
graduation is any more exciting for parents than this is.

Cheers and the Sad Song

On the corner of our block is a salon where TheLimey gets his hair cut. The stylist also coincidentally is American with an English husband and has small children, who are occasional playmates with Limelet. Yesterday Limelet wanted to stop at the salon to say hi, which we did. The little boy his age was there, and both got ring pops. A few minutes later I noticed that they were clinking candy rings with each other, saying "Cheers!" repeatedly. It was really funny--I don't know which one started it, though I know Limelet knows to cheers us when we're all drinking tea.

This evening we decided to get out of the house and go to a small local coffee shop for a little while. Limelet got an ice cream cone and we had hot drinks. It turned out to be an open mic event, which was fine while no one was actually doing open mic. They played some dance music. But then a young woman got up to sing with a pianist. The song she sang was one of those sad soft-rock leave-taking kind of ballads with lots of swooping minor-key vocals. Limelet was initially completely hypnotized because he loves performers with microphones or instruments. But as the music became sadder, his face crumpled and he collapsed into into racking sobs over my lap. It was so pitiful. He could hardly breathe for sobbing. So we had to quick grab up all our stuff and escape. It took him some time to recover once outside, clinging to me and weeping brokenheartedly. "Well, at least we know he's not a psychopath," said my husband.

Once home, I put a Wiggles tape on, just to counteract the sad music with some happy music. It seems to be working well.

Darnit, I didn't get a chance to drink my hot cocoa, because it was still full when we had to go, and then it spilled on the bumpy sidewalks on the way home. I had only some dregs.

3...2...1... Aaaand We Have Literacy!

As of last week, Limelet can suddenly read three words. Well, two phrases, perhaps. "ZOO" and "THE END."  Both gleaned from media, of course.

 

"ZOO" he actually gets the whole letters/sounds concept and it happened rather suddenly. I pointed out the letters and their sounds in his favorite video game ("Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo") and he just got it, and now recognizes the word when he sees it anywhere. 

 

As for "THE END" I think he just recognizes the overall look of the phrase, especially in context. "TH" is a kind of hard letter combination to get initially.

 

He loves for me to point out the letters in his name while sounding them out. I guess he recognizes his name, too, come to think of it. But mostly the first letter.

 

So far, he doesn't recognize "bigfoot" but I'm sure it'll be any day now.