OUR HOMEPRESCHOOL Age 32 Months

He also wears a hat whenever we leave the house. Loves his hats. We just bought a bicycle seat for him that fits on the back of my husband's bike, and his own little helmet, and what head covering do you think he insisted on wearing to the market? Yes, he had to wear his new bicycle helmet! When I was a younger mother I would have nixed that bicycle helmet right off the bat but I'm less uptight now than I used to be. We went ahead to the market and that day he got more compliments about looking cute than he'd ever gotten before! There he was in all his glory. Two and a half years old walking down the aisles in Levis, tennis shoes, shirt on backwards, and a big, gold, sparkly bicycle helmet sitting atop his noggin. I think he shined because he thought he looked so fine. I was so glad I didn't bust his bubble and make him put his shirt on right and leave the helmet at home.

As for learning, I am in awe. I am amazed by how Julian is absorbing and retaining information and experiences. He knows most of the colors now. He can count to three, or five, and I heard him count up to nine once. He only does it when he wants to though, not often when I ask him, so it turns out that if I want to figure out how much he knows I have to listen closely or I'm out of luck. Okay. I can respect that. He's not a performing seal in the circus. Or as my husband tells me when the baby doesn't do what I want him to do, "He's not a robot." He recognizes many of the ABC's and wonder of wonders, tonight at the dinner table he started singing a part of the ABC song. Mind you this is a child who always, and I mean always, shushes me when I sing. I don't know why but he always does. I try not to take it personally. But evidently he must be listening to me singing before he shushes me. I'm on to him now.

Before we had Julian I didn't realize that little children don't need to work at learning. I thought that schools knew something the rest of us didn't or that they had some sort of formula to follow. But children learn naturally. They learn when they are at play. We have done no sit down work, no flashcards, nothing of that sort. He's done all his learning just through our conversations, playing games, and doing arts and crafts.

Did I mention that he's off the bottle now? I stopped giving him his night time bottle last month. My husband was kind of sad because it marks the end of another chapter of Julian's babyhood. He wants Julian to stay a baby forever! At every stage my husband has said he loves the age and doesn't want him to get any older. Well, I'll have to see if he's still saying that when Julian hits age sixteen. Probably not!

Julian just started putting two word sentences together very recently and on 12/23/99 he spoke his first three word sentence. His very first three word sentence was "Where Mamma go?" He said it to his Daddy so I didn't get to hear it with my very own ears but I was (am) happy. We know some people whose daughter was talking a lot at age twelve months. Our boy has just started talking at over two and a half years old and you'd think we had a baby Einstein on our hands when we tell everyone about him. We are so proud! But that's the way it should be, isn't it? Everyone needs at least one person on this Earth who thinks you are the greatest thing since sliced bread. At least one person is good. Two is better.

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