Letters and words

Realizing that the majority of my recent posts have fallen into the categories of rants and story, I thought I'd, I don't know, maybe tell you what the girls, as in littlegirls, are up to these days.

We just discovered PBS. Yes, I grew up with the rest of you watching Sesame Street, but somehow the channel had gone uncharted thus far in the Lewis household. Unlike Clifford and the aforementioned, a couple shows I'd never heard of: Word World and Super Why. Now this is programming a stay-at-home former-teacher-mom and parent of a should-be-in-preschool-er (more on that another day) can get behind. After one episode, Olaiya came upstairs and said, "Mom! I can spell hat!" And she did! Instant results, ah ah ah. Now, not every 30 minute t.v. teacher-student interaction produces such immediate "success", but it's definitely piqued Olaiya's interest in letter sounds and spelling.

Today she experienced her first abc connect-the-dots pictures. It was pretty exciting! We sang the alphabet a lot, cried a bit when Mom drew the line from x to y when Olaiya had already drawn a line from y to b, and chatted about the letter themed coloring book pages. While working on her fourth torn out page (she was "making a book for Daddy's birthday") she's like, "I can't believe I'm good at this!" We took the publishing downstairs to the lunch table and she asked about more words and sounds.

"Mom! What letter does yogurt start with?" and "Mom! What letter does apple start with?" And I'd reply with things like "Let's see, yogurt starts with a "yuh, yuh" sound. What letter makes a "yuh, yuh" sound?" "B!" "No. B makes a "buh buh" sound. Here, I'll give you a hint. It's a letter that's in your name, Olai-ya. What letter makes the "ya" sound? "Y!" "That's right!"

Then she's all "Let's spell shoe!" and "Mom, what sound does the letter room make?" Now when talking letters and sounds, these are the things that can get this Spanish-professing mama going. But having stated that this post would be informational, not rant-ical, I'll refrain from bashing the phonetics of my children's first language (where my daughter tears up because "Sometimes a makes an "aa" sound like in apple or hat, but in your name it makes an "ah" sound.") So we work through "sometimes two o's make an "ew" sound", just kinda skip over the "ew" of shoe, and then Olaiya asks me:

"What letter makes an "unh" sound?" "N?" "Nooo." "Um, I don't know Olaiya, what is it?" "I'll give you a hint: it starts with an "unh" sound...Mom, don't think, just guess!"

Meanwhile, Naomi Jean's right on developmental schedule. She's got lots of words and more and more sentences. She debuted one of my favorites the other day after dinner: "Daddy? Daddy?" "No, daddy has to work late tonight - he'll be home after you go ni-night." "Bummer."

Another is a phrase she's said in its interpersonal form to her mama but also some recent nights at bedtime: "What blanket do you want?" "Aunt Win-sy." "You want the blanket Aunt Lindsay made you?" "Yesth. I wuv it." Mmm, sweet baby sentiments. Just this week she's finally using her own name, "'omi". You've come a long way, baby.

A newly learned two word phrase