For instance, just the other day I was upstairs putting away some laundry when Joel came wandering in my room holding one of those foam bath letters from his bath toys. "Mama, "W," he said. I turned and looked and sure enough, he was holding the letter W. He then proceeded to flip the letter over and said, "Now M." Seriously. I nearly passed out. Luckily, Jack was there to witness it, too, or he would have never believed me. Come to find out (after quizzing him on the rest of the letters), he can also identify the letters T, J, Y, O, N and U. He's also started counting and can make it up to 18 with help. Go figure. I guess watching Sesame Street has really done some good!
Joel has also had a serious sentence-making epiphany in the last couple of weeks. He literally never stops talking from the moment he wakes up in the morning and is starting to put four and five words together in sentences. He's doing very well with assigning possessives to his words (i.e. "Mommy's hot coffee"and "Joe's little tractor), and he often describes what he is doing while he is doing it ("Joel eat yogurt raisins," "Joel go play upstairs). He's also got quite the sense of humor, often catching on to sarcasm and playing the clown. I should start to pray now for the patience of his kindergarten teacher.
His instinct for problem solving and his manual dexterity also continue to amaze me. He is always taking things apart to find out how they work and pretending to "fix" things. If this kid doesn't end up working with his hands somehow, I'll be shocked.
Joel continues to love on his little sister, "Norno" (as he calls her), and it's so sweet to see him interact with her. We just love having him around and look forward to seeing what new thing he has learned each and every day.
