The counting has begun. A few weeks ago I started counting his berries at breakfast. I'd grab about 10 and then count them out, 1 by 1, until I ran out. Sometimes he'd sort of count along throwing out a number here or there, but not regularly. We'd count other things, like pictures in his books, or other foods. Then last week he started just counting up on his own. He'd say "1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10" or such. Never getting it right, but still cute. Then tonight at dinner Pip and were talking about something and Moriarty just started counting. 1 through 10, perfectly. I was so shocked! We clapped and got excited and he did it a few more times. He's officially learned to count to 10.
He's making progress in other scholastic realms as well. I'm trying to point out the color of objects in our normal life, rather than sit down and focus on colors. Sometimes he surprises me. I was wearing a bright pink shirt one day and when I picked him up from school before even saying hello he pointed at my shirt and said "pink" very clearly. Kind of like the counting he's all over the place most of the time. Some days everything is green. If you ask what color it is, it's green. :-) We'll keep reinforcing and eventually he'll learn them. It's not a race. I prefer to build this stuff into our normal discussions and that worked really well with the numbers.
I'm sure all of this is being reinforced by school. His new Montessori school is amazing. They give him lots of fun challenges and the kids and teachers all love him. When we show up the kids exclaim "Mo!" and he gets happy too. I love how enthusiastic he is to see them too. This was definitely the right move. He's still making some progress with potty training at school but we're not pushing it at home. We're still doing so much renovation work it's hard to also carve out time to focus on potty training. In time. We'll get there.
His language skills are getting more impressive by the day. This week he started saying "What are you doing, Mommy" over and over and over and over. It's cute the first 30 times....Yay parenthood. Favorite phrases include "I did it", "It's MINE", "I love you" and "More berries please". I admit we prompted the "I love you" a lot, but now he just tells me sometimes and it melts my mommy heart. He is asking for a lot of foods by name. A current favorite is jambalaya. He's really turning into a little person, not a baby. We plan to move him from his crib into a big boy bed soon. Pip captures some amazing videos of him sleeping (snoring!) and waking up.
He's getting a little obsessive about cleanliness. He likes to vacuum (but only with hearing protection because he HATES loud noises). He also likes to clean up spills on his tray. It was great when it was picking up after himself and sweeping under his chair, but now he seems obsessed with not being dirty. It doesn't seem dire, but it's a bit challenging. He wants to take off shirts as soon as they're dirty and if we're outside and he falls down he gets upset at having a little dirt on his hands. We're trying to be understanding, but also realistic. He does like to jump in puddles when he has his boots on though. We caught another playful video of him hanging out in a bucket. He's magical most of the time. Even the willful morning challenges of getting ready for school are pretty mild still.