Gummy Bear: Smarty Pants Update

Guys, I don't even know what to do this with kid anymore! He is such a smarty pants, and it's because he chooses to be. He tries to be a big kid, and I try to encourage him whenever I can. It's funny how he knows some things but not others, he is so opinionated about everything!

Gummy Bear knows his ABC's, and has for quite some time. He sings the song, knows them on sight, and does pretty well with lowercase letters too. Counting is good too, he can count from one to twenty pretty well and is picking up counting objects (when he chooses to anyways--sometimes he doesn't even try!). Shapes? He's got shapes, from triangles and circles to rectangles and stars. Colors? The entire rainbow and then some. When we are out he'll point out the "orange digger"; this morning he was showing me the blue and red flowers on my comforter. He obviously still makes mistakes--d and b look the same, and he skips four and five/fourteen and fifteen when he's counting, pink and purple are mixed up... but that's probably a good thing hahaha!

He loves construction machines, followed closely by tractors and trains. And animals. He knows the basic parts of a digger and other machines-- "Where's the bucket? Where's the boom arm? Where's the cab? Where's the tracks?" We have been checking out simple nonfiction books about cranes, diggers, bulldozers, tractors, trains, firetrucks, cats, dogs, horses, cows... he loves them, and brings them to me just as often as other stories. He'll come to me and ask me to help him find his tanker truck (cement truck), dump truck, flatbed trailer... When we drive down the road he points out all the "big trucks" (semi trucks). If the firetrucks go down the road he runs up to me and announces it. Sometimes he gets distracted getting into the car and stops to point out the wheels on our car and the cars parked next to us.

 Bob the Builder is his favorite show (the old version... the animated ones are creepy). He liked Thomas the Tank Engine, but Bob trumps all. He fights me on diaper changes, but if Bob will be involved afterwards then he's all over it. (Paw Patrol is a close second.) He sings the theme song while he's playing (whether that's at home or in sacrament meeting...). He picked up his toy remote and pretended it was a phone, and he got a call from Farmer Pickles... later that day we were watching Bob and the scene he imitated came on! When Husband Man gets his tools out, GB is enthralled. He spent half an hour "sawing" his shoes apart the other day.

Husband Man taught him "left foot" and "right foot" when he put GB's shoes on, and GB has latched on to that concept. This morning when I was putting in my contacts he came in and announced that I was poking my left eye. When we go for a walk I can tell him to turn left or right at the corner and he usually goes that direction. He loves it when I narrate where we are going while we drive: "Now we are turning left. Then we will go straight, and stop at the stop sign. Now we will turn right. Oh, the light is red. We have to wait for it to turn green, and then we can turn left." He points out when we are going around a curve, up or down a hill, and under a bridge. The other day he cried because I wasn't going to go up the hill, and another time he cried because I didn't turn left..

 I found some nursery rhymes online that I pull up for him sometimes. It has songs about letters, counting, colors, seasons, etc, but also your standards like Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, Old MacDonald Had a Farm, and Wheels on the Bus. He LOVES them. He cries when they're over. I find him singing the songs on his own, too. Last night he was laying in bed singing Itsy Bitsy Spider; when he's driving his cars across the couch I'll hear him singing "round and round, round and round... wheels a bus... round and round..." He picked them up quickly, and remembers them well. He does the same with books he loves, too. A few of the books I've brought home from the library he's made me read multiple times a day until they go back, and then he tells them himself even after they're gone. He just "read" Train Man and Digger Man to me this afternoon, because he has them memorized.

 "The itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout..."

Opposites are also a thing. Up and down, big and small, loud and soft... My favorite is when he is reading a book about diggers or something, and he points out "Small digger... BIG DIGGER!" He has a board book of opposites and he "reads" it to me on his own. He points out when his carseat is hot or cold, that the airplane is hiiiigh in the sky...

I love this little guy. He keeps me on my toes, whether it's chasing after him or amazing me with something else he's picked up, either from us or the other kids we hang out with. He imitates everything and everyone, but only does things when he wants to and not a day sooner. After he picked up his letters and numbers, I tried to keep him going with shapes... nothing, until a couple months later he started pointing them out on his own. His speech is pretty good, I'm sure it'll dramatically increase when we are around family over the holidays, but his stubborn streak goes there too. He still says "nilk" even though I know he can say "milk"--and I'm pretty sure he says it wrong just because I get after him for it! He is such a (smart) little stinker. I love him so much!