Top gear

Monkey wants to body-paint himself red. Except his eyes, because he's very sensible. I'm not exactly sure why, but apparently it will provide camouflage (when he's on the red chair, I'm assuming) and help him to defeat baddies. He promises to take a bath as soon as the baddies have been defeated. I think we should teach him the word "vanquish" next.

I hope this desire wears off soon, before he goes looking for a paintbrush.

The weather was beautiful today. We went out on the back deck and I fished the easel (warped from being left out in the rain one - or seven - too many times last summer) out of the shed. It was soon abandoned in favour of making trails with the sidewalk chalk all over the deck itself, and then on the driveway out the front. Monkey was drawing long wiggly lines and then having me make a movie on my camera of him walking thrillingly along them. (I know you'd love me to post one of these engrossing pieces of cinematographic genius, but I think I'll keep them to myself.) Mabel was having an involved conversation with her doll, and her horse, who were sharing the dolly stroller.

I made the mistake of leaning against the front of the car. And then raising my feet so I was perched on the bonnet (hood). Big mistake. Huge mistake. Mabel looked up, decided sitting on the car was the most fun thing ever, and scrambled up to join me. I abruptly removed her, stated that nobody would be sitting on any cars, and she went back to the chalk, or her baby, or whatever it was.

The battery light on my camera started flashing and I took Monkey in to show him how I had to put it into its little holder and plug it into the wall. When we came back out we found in front of us something approximating this (excuse my lack of Photoshop, so I have to do it in text):

BABY
CAR

I would have taken a photo, but I was too busy grabbing her before the neighbours called CPS. Also, the camera was plugged into the wall in the house. But take it from me, you don't want to find your two-year-old perched like a grinning maniac in between the bars of the roof rack of your pale green Subaru Outback. It's just not a Good Thing, you know.

Acheivements

Yesterday, out of the blue, Monkey announced that two plus two equals four. I was quite pleased. I asked him what two plus three would be, and he got that right too. Then I hazarded five plus two, and he guessed six, so I told him to count it on his fingers, which he did, came up with seven, and was delighted with himself.

I have no idea whether four and seven-and-a-half months is young or old or average for such an achievement, and I don't really care either way. I'd shown him how to count on his fingers before and he'd never quite got the idea, so to see him work it out for himself gave me that tiny thrill you get when your child does something new.

I suppose these moments are rarer as they get older. The night before, while not going to sleep, Mabel had picked up a Colors and Shapes book and identified not just the Ss and the Os on the cover, but also the C. Maybe it was a lucky guess, but I was impressed. Then again, it impresses me when she calls green green and red red, instead of blue or orange or some other random colour, so her bar is, of necessity, lower.

[Speaking of which, low bars are no impediment to her. In the past days she has been discovered leaning over the top of the low white toy shelves, straining to reach something at the top of the high wooden toy shelves (luckily, she picked the set that are anchored to the wall), and teetering on the chair trying to climb up the bookshelves in the front room. Serious supervision is needed. We haven't got a photo yet because we're always too busy pulling her off the item in question.]

I was co-opping in Monkey's class yesterday. As usual, one of the little girls sat down beside me at the art table and proceeded to draw a mommy and baby, complete with eyelashes and eyebrows. Another day a different girl had copied out an entire sentence in perfectly legible letters - albeit running from right to left across the page instead of left to right. Monkey prefers to work in broader strokes, and I'm still delighted when he writes his name or copies out someone else's. (They have a real mailbox in the classroom, and they can put in letters for other class members, or teachers, or parents can leave letters for them, and they're all distributed at the end of the day. It's a really great way to get them drawing and writing and interested in reading for themselves.)

I can't really compare Monkey's fine-motor skills with those of the other boys his age, because it's almost always the girls at the art table: the boys are mostly off fashioning large blocks into fire engines and (play-)microwaving the (play)phones. I'm pretty sure any people he draws don't get eyelashes and eyebrows: I'd be happy if they had arms and legs. Then again, he's not interested in drawing people, but lately has produced images of the air-conditioning unit and the remote control and TV.

I'm telling you, he's an engineer.