While we were taking advantage of the nice weather on Sunday (which has since been replaced by a week of rain and possible snow tomorrow), Adam decided that two of his friends needed to join us. He has three of these little guys – they have a stuffed animal head and blanket body. In his right hand he has Mickey Mouse (his favorite) and in his left is Elephant (2nd favorite). The third that he has is Winnie the Pooh.  Poor Winnie rarely makes it out of Adam’s room. In fact he spends most of his time on the floor next to Adam’s crib (which is where I always find him, regardless of how many times I lovingly place him back in the crib).

Now here’s the point of my story – and no, I’m not going to introduce you to all of his toys – he calls Mickey and Pooh both Pooh. At first I thought it was just what he called that particular type of toy, but then I realized he calls the elephant “Elephant” (he gets his creative naming from his mama – my favorite stuffed animal from when I was little is named Blue Doggy – and yes, it is a blue dog – and yes, I still have him).  If I ask him to go get Mickey Mouse, he knows exactly who I’m talking about, and will even correct me and call him Pooh.  It’s pretty cute.

Okay, maybe this is one of those rambling stories that’s only cute to me because I’m his mama.  I’m okay with that. I included pictures for the rest of you, and I don’t care who you are – those are cute no matter what.

This kid loves letters.  He spent the whole bath sticking his new foam letters and numbers to the wall of the tub and saying what they were as he did. He was so funny once they were all stuck to the side of the tub he would stand up and clap and cheer for himself. After he was done celebrating I would use the washcloth to clean the wall off and knock them back in to the tub and we’d start all over again.

I only gave him about 12 of the 84 foam characters and of the dozen I grabbed the only one he really knew was the “W” (or “M” if he stuck it on the wall upside down).  I might go through them and pick out the ones he knows and the ones he says frequently (like “E” and “A” and “T”, even though he can’t identify him yet).

I’m not pushing the letter recognition though. He enjoys pointing them out and likes playing with his foam and magnetic letters.  He also really likes to have me write the letters (on paper with crayons or on the driveway in chalk) so he can color on them. He’s just a little guy though, he’s got plenty of time to learn all this.  I’ll keep telling him what the letters are when he hands them to me and writing letters for him to scribble on whenever he asks, but learning the alphabet before he’s two isn’t a goal of ours.

He’s got more important things to figure out right now – like how to get out of a onesie without unsnapping the bottom.  Pretty sure he mastered that one today.