A few days ago, Aurora mentioned to Brian that she was interested in learning “times”. With her interest in and knack for addition and subtraction, as well as her enjoyment of the peas game (she tries to eat them all before I can count them by threes, fours or fives) we both assumed she meant that she wanted to learn multiplication. And yes, she is slightly interested in multiplication, but not much farther than 2 x 2.
Eventually it became clear that what she really wanted was to learn to read Time. Ah! Okay, we’ve been meaning to get her a clock for a while, so we headed down to London Drugs and let her pick out a cute magenta digital clock radio that is iPod-compatible. When Aurora and I hooked it all up, and plugged in the iPod, she was thrilled. After a few random songs, she made a request for a particular one. Then again. And again. My heart filled with a warm glow of pride as she learned how to use the clock’s buttons to play “I Want to Tell You”, on the Beatles’ superb album Revolver, a total of five times in one afternoon.
When Daddy came in to see how things were going, Aurora shouted, “Daddy! We plugged in my new radio! And it plays songs from the iPod!! And it even has a clock on it, too!!!”
I don’t know how old Mozart was when he wrote his first piece, but his momma couldn’t have been any prouder of him than I was the day (one week ago) when Aurora first drank from a cup with no straw. A glow of euphoria settled over me that afternoon and evening, which nothing could shake.
Aurora’s been quite adamant against drinking from a cup, afraid that she might spill, or just not be good at it right off the bat (a character flaw she unfortunately inherited from yours truly). Somehow, though, our friend Laura found the antidote. I don’t know whether it was the perfect little cup, her own calming presence, or just the fact that Aurora trusts her completely in a way that kids can never trust their own parents (who sometimes have to do bad things for the good of their child – think shots or toothbrushing or discipline). Anyway, once the breakthrough was made, she couldn’t wait to repeat the feat for Daddy at dinner that night, although I had to ask in just the right way…
Our triumph was short-lived, though. As the days went by she became less and less interested in the non-sippy alternative. I’m hoping for a resurgence in the cup-drinking thing when she turns ten or so.
All it takes is faith and trust… and a little bit of pixie dust!
I have a new favourite past-time: listening to Aurora sing. Over the past two months, a remarkable change has come over our little girl, and it’s nothing but wonderful. It’s such a turnaround from last year, when I blogged about her distaste for music. I’m glad I perservered, in a gentle way, with my music appreciation program. Even though last summer she seemed to not want to listen to any kind of music at all, once every few days I would put some nice, not-overly-loud music on, sometimes classical, pop, jazz or folk. I’d tell her what the story was about, or if there were no words, I’d tell her what I thought the composer wanted to describe with the piece. She didn’t like James Taylor’s “Our Town” until I described how it fit in with the plot of the movie Cars, and then she requested it repeatedly. We had a breakthrough when she agreed to listen to the first bit of every Great Big Sea song, choose the ones she liked, and make an Aurora-friendly (i.e. not too loud) playlist.
Then in January Aurora started dancing, to ACDC’s “Thunderstruck”, which she calls the “Hockey Song”. I’ve got to give Daddy credit for finding the right song for Aurora to rock out to. By the Valentine’s Day dance at her preschool Aurora was dancing to just about anything. We’re so happy with her new talent that we let her stand on the dining room chairs to do it if she wants to. Then she started singing, mostly the A-B-C song, with a cute little Canadian “zed” at the end. It’s quite fun to sit in the next room and listen to her sing to herself, about anything under the sun. Kind of an improvisational, stream-of-consciousness thing.
Here’s a little video of her singing to herself.
(If you’re interested in the lyrics, I’ve posted them on YouTube)
Once in a while Aurora has a special request: instead of a second story at night, after the toothbrushing, she would like to perform a “concert” with one parent while the other one listens appreciatively. Sometimes we have instruments. It’s rather hard to sing a “dudette” with someone who has neither sheet music nor any familiar tune to perform, but somehow we manage, and there is always a lot of bows and clapping.
Aurora read her first word today, “Paint”. Totally unprompted, without anyone coaching or even paying much attention. She was looking at this quite attention-getting package for a set of colour-it-yourself suncatchers we’re borrowing from Kate & Laura, and as I was making dinner I heard in some dim corner of my mind, “puh-aaay-nnn-tuh, exclamation mark. Paint!”.
She’s read a few short words before (”cat”, “no”, “Mom”, and her own name) but we usually asked her what the word was. It probably helped that each letter was in a different rainbow colour, eh?
