Two year olds are so...interesting.

I know every parent finds their child absolutely intriguing and I am no different.  The things that come out of Harper's mouth on a daily basis fascinate and inspire me- they inspire me to be a better parent, a different parent than the one I thought I would be.  I guess the one I thought I would be was a little like the Rick Moranis character in the movie "Parenthood" who walked around with flashcards and tried to make their child bilingual by age 2.  Andy likes to mock me for being like that but I really am not. Honestly, I don't have time and I have accepted that that's not the way my child learns.

One thing of interest over the last month is my realization that Harper does not really recognize her numbers. She  knows what a "2" is, of course, but the other ones she just doesn't care to learn, or learn well. I have realized that symbols like numbers and letters are completely abstract concepts for a two year old who barely has context for them aside from "H is for Harper" and "D is for Daddy".  Even when she spells her name for me I realize that it is just because I have drilled it into her head.  Harper shows a lot of interest in reading and seems to put together that letters make up words, but it ends there. Here are a few Harper quotes on numbers:

3="that's not a three, that's a funny S"
4="that's an A with a broken leg, mommy."
5="that's a two like Harper, it's just upside-down!"
8="two Os, stuck together."

Her lack of knowledge about numbers briefly left me a bit distraught and feeling like a failure of a mostly stay at home mom, so I went where any other parent in my situation would go: Walgreens.  At a friend's suggestion, I bought a box of magnetic numbers, traced them on to a piece of construction paper and placed the construction paper over a cookie sheet with the intention of having Harper match the magnetic number to the traced number.  She enjoyed it, for one round. Then she had the numbers make friends and talk to each other, a la "Hi, my name is number three, what's your name?"

Truly, two year olds are fascinating!