Learning how to tell time and spell

It is always amazing to me when i suddenly notice that Conor is doing something new. It might take me a couple of days, or weeks, before it suddenly sinks in - “Hey, when did he start doing that”?

Over the past couple of weeks, Con has been really into the kitchen clock, and learning about telling time. Its pretty complex, having to deal with the 2 different hands on the clock, what each one means, heck, just even recognizing the numbers!

He has known for some time that Ciara gets home at six, but now he always wants me to point out “where” six is on the clock. He now can tell when its before and after six. Well, sometimes anyway! But it is pretty cool that he is starting to be able to tell these things on an analog clock.

The other big advance has been an interest in spelling words. He’s known his letters for quite a while now, but just in the past week he has started to do spelling. We have the if-you-have-a-child-you-must-have-fridge-letter-magnets, and have been using them to do a couple of words. His name, MOM and DAD.

We had been playing with the letters last night, and on the fridge had left CONO - we’d used the R someplace else. This morning he comes in, says something to the effect of “Its missing the R”, finds it and puts it at the end of the word. He then found the two D’s and the A and spelt DAD.

Both Ciara and I exchanged the raised eye-brow “can you believe what he is doing” look.

One other thing i wanted to mention is his desire to hear and tell stories. Now, they are pretty simple stories usually involving fire trucks or construction equipment. However, he gets involved with the telling - sometimes what kind of truck, or the colour, or what has to happen next. A typical story would be the following:

The big green dump truck is at the construction site. Its wheel breaks. The mechanic comes and fixes the wheel. The dump truck goes back to work.

There would be other embellishments, but that is the basic structure. Another favourite:

The rescue truck goes out on an emergency. It has to rescue the monkey and giraffe which are stuck in the tree. The fire-fighters put the ladder on the tree and climb up to the monkey and giraffe. They then carry them down safely. The monkey and giraffe thank the fire-fighters for the rescue, and they then all go home.

After this we sometimes talk about what the fire-fighters do once they get back to the station - do they have lunch (waffles are a favourite, apparently), or they get called out on another rescue. There is also usually lots of hand gesturing to denote what is going on at different times during the story.

Just amazing stuff, really.