Babystar is a genius and also she knows nothing.
She knows that she is two years old, and she can hold up two fingers. I am certain she has no concept of time. She doesn’t know what ‘two-years-old’ means.
She can count to ten. I am pretty sure this is solely because her 20-year-old brother makes her count to ten before BLASTOFF. Blastoff is a game they play where he flies her to the kitchen and back. I pretend I don’t understand it because I don’t want to play.
She can count her toys or her fingers or her books. She can bring me three books. She understands amounts, especially amounts of cookies. But she has no clue what a five looks like.
We bought this Melissa & Doug puzzle to try to help her learn what the numbers look like. ($7.99) It is sort of working. She has 1, 3, 4 and 8 on lockdown. She knows where 7 fits in the puzzle, but she doesn’t know that it is seven. 6 and 9 are a lot of fun because they fit in each other’s spots. 2 and 5 give her trouble. They are almost the same but they aren’t the same at all. (Except on a calculator so she’s basically a genius.)
She calls this puzzle her Number Game and she loves playing her Number Game. She’ll get there.
I totally need to Pinterest-Mom DIY a number matching game for her, and I totally will. Someday. Maybe when she goes to college and I have a few minutes to myself. For now, we match the puzzle numbers to the numbers on her wooden blocks and then name the numbers.
MAYDAY MAYDAY: DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE ANY IDEAS THAT ARE SUPER EASY AND SUPER EFFECTIVE?
I also bought these flash cards from the Target dollar aisle. One of them is for numbers. I haven’t opened any of these boxes. They are in the ’emergency distraction’ drawer. I’ll think of a number game soon. Maybe.
Babystar busted out with ‘eleven, twelve’ the other day and I was all, what do you know about twelve?!?
It turns out that her iPad plays a song that counts to twelve, and she knows about clock numbers from Blue’s Clues.
Then I figured out that her laptop* plays a song that counts to twenty. And Babystar has learned up to fourteen. Guess what comes after fourteen? Fourteen!
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14.
This is where we live now. Good enough.
RAISING BABYSTAR: $21,184.43
*This laptop that was a birthday present last year from her uncle. It also totally taught her the alphabet. But she calls N ‘newt’. It is so freaking cute and I don’t want to correct her. Can we all just agree to change the pronunciation of N to ‘newt‘? Please? Ok, cool, thanks.
BabyCostsMoney 