They've Got Skills

Emily has been full of surprises lately. First of all, she LOVES books and learning. I guess the knowledge was bound to stick. Anyway, she brought me "The Little Bears" book the other day. Some of the pages have trees drawn in rows on them. She wanted to count the trees with me. She proceeded to count and I assumed she would count to the typical 20 (that's as high as I thought she could count)and be done. Well, she got to 20 and kept going. She got all the way up to 29 and then went to 20-10. I then had to teach her 30 and so she went on to count all 37 trees on the page. I had no idea she could count that high. Granted she skips 14 and 15 almost every time she counts now. For some reason she used to know these numbers but now has something against them because she almost always says "13,16." I was proud of her anyway. Another surprise came when I wrote out her name. I then asked her to tell me the letters in her name and she could tell me each letter. She also can recognize her name when she sees it. She also knows 20 of her letters. Since I didn't know what she had rolling around in that noggin of hers, I wonder what other skills she has hidden. Maybe she knows how to speak Chinese too. We did used to joke that her baby babbling sounded like Chinese. Anyway, Joshua is developing some skills too. He can now hold his bottle very well and get it back in his mouth if it comes out. He can roll pretty well and has started sitting a little by himself. He has to lean forward to do so. I usually put his boppy pillow behind him and so haven't tested his skills completely. So, we'll see how well he does without it behind him (not that I won't be there to catch him when he topples over, I just want to see how well he can support himself). He's also doing really well eating his baby food. We're up to orange veggies now. He's such a curious little guy and has become a wiggle worm. He wants to touch everything and of course taste pretty much everything. When I hold him and face him towards me, it's hard to get him to focus on my face because he wants to look at and touch everything around us.