Lil Book Worm

Remember how much Cae loved books when he was younger? Well it's nice to see that his love for Reading is still going strong. He has apparently decided he is over wasting his time on the childish picture books that other kids his age enjoy. Silly rhyming and sing-along books are just not challenging enough for our little genius. Oh no, he'd much rather spend his time perusing novels and newspapers.

And of course he wouldn't truly be a baby Einstein if didn't occasionally take time from his taxing days filled with exploring new toys, singing the ABC's, and pooping in the potty to learn a brand new language. Geby sent us this picture with the following caption that we thought was just adorable and described Cae perfectly!

"Hello mommy, I'm trying to figure out Geby's language, because sometimes kids who only speak Amharic come here and it is important I know what they are saying to me.... you know....."

Ummm...Is This Normal?

Let us begin by saying that we in no way taught Caleb to do what you are about to see...

Here's how it happened... On mommy's way to Geby's to pick Caleb up she thought she would download some new apps to her iPhone that Cae could play in the car on the way home. She was looking for a phonics app so Cae could start learning to associate sounds with the letters he already knows and stumbled across a couple new letter apps, a number app, and a shape app.* Mommy knew he would enjoy the letter and number games, but seeing as we have NEVER, and I mean NEVER, gone over shapes with Cae before, she figured he would just play around with it and lose interest quickly. Oh no, not our little Einstein...

Cut to the drive home. Mommy is driving and Caleb is in the back playing with the iPhone. Mommy hears him successfully identify all the letters on the letter game (no shocker there), then he proceeds to identify all the numbers on the number game (again we knew he could do that), but then gets to the shapes. Mommy waits to hear lots of "try again's" and "pick another" but instead the game keeps saying "Yay," "good job," and "you earned a sticker." What??

About an hour later daddy gets home and mommy tells him about the new apps she downloaded. Together mommy, daddy, and Caleb sit down to play. Again, he breezes through the letters and numbers with no problem. Then we get to the shapes...

Daddy says, "Oh, how did he do with this one since we never taught him shapes".

Mommy says, "Watch"

So we ask you again... Is this normal? I mean baby boy saw the game for the first time less than 2 hours ago? Unfortunately the camera battery died before we could capture him correctly identifying the hexagon and rectangle. How in the world does an 18 month old know what a crescent is, or a hexagon for that matter?? We know adults who can't even identify a hexagon? We also think it's pretty amazing that Cae has the patience to listen to the phone give him directions and then respond accordingly. Aren't 18 month olds supposed to have a very little attention span??

Again, we've never covered shapes. Especially not hexagon and crescent. Maybe Geby is teaching him?? If so, all parents should take their kids to Geby immediately! All we know is that nothing this boy does surprises us anymore.

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* I did eventually find a phonics app, but it seems a bit too advanced for Caleb because you have to trace the letters on the phone. Who knows though, at the rate baby boy is learning he might bust out some perfect cursive script at any minute. Really, we wouldn't be surprised.

Happy Easter...Miami Vice Style

Caleb, Auntie Amber and mommy take full responsibility for this outfit. You had no choice but to put it on and rock it with style. Unfortunately auntie and mommy did not have the foresight to think that pairing these adorable separate articles of clothing would create an outfit that inadvertently paid homage to the fashion styling's of Miami Vice.  I guess we should have known that a lineup of sport coat, T-shirt, white linen pants, and loafers was a bit of a fashion no-no.

It's alright Caleb - you made it look good!

Check out the link below to see our unintentional inspiration for Caleb's look:

http://www.fiftiesweb.com/tv/miami-vice-pics.htm

Cuz Our Baby is the Bomb Like Tick...Tick

Caleb is smart. We are not exactly sure how smart, because we don't really know any other 18 month old kids to compare him to, but baby boy learns quickly. We wish we could ask other parents, but it's a little awkward to start conversations with, "Our son started walking at 9 months, how about yours?" or "Our son can sing the ABC's at 18 months, how about yours?" So, maybe we are in the majority and most parents have super smart kids, but we thinks it's pretty amazing that at only 18 months Caleb can already identify every letter in the alphabet and (almost) sing the ABC's. We attribute his genius to the iPhone* (it's unbelievable the apps they have for toddlers) but also to the greatest TV show every created, Wheel of Fortune. Wheel of Fortune plays religiously on our TV every night at 6:30 while mommy cooks dinner and Cae entertains himself by playing along and calling out the letters.

We play our own little version of Wheel of Fortune at home but we call it "The Letter Game".** Cae can pick out any letter you ask and bring it to you. He started doing it a couple weeks ago but it took us a little while to capture it on video. Is this normal? We think it's pretty impressive but what do we know - everything he does impresses us because we are his parents.

Pretty cool eh? The video goes on and on, but it takes roughly 2 hours to upload a 30 second video to the blog so posting these small clips took a while. Of course, "The Letter Game" is not without a little fun too...

And as an added bonus, here's a little clip of Cae singing his ABC's. Sorry for the poor video, at first Cae was cooperating with whole the video shoot thing, but every kid has their limits and unfortunately by the time we got to the ABC's he was ready for a new game (hence the serenading of the carpet and his back to the camera).

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* We will post video of him playing on the iPhone soon however baby boy is stubborn and doesn't like to do anything when we want him to. Therefore, we have to wait and catch him when he doesn't know he is being filmed.

** Yes, some would technically not think of this as a game, but he's a little boy and doesn't know any better. What do you think the odds are that this will still be his favorite game when he's 13? Oh well, mommy can always hope right?