P52 - Things that Grow

Alternate Title...."Better Late Than Never"




For this last week's theme, I wanted to highlight some of the things that are growing around my house.

While we were at Disney two weeks ago, Micah was walking down the path after leaving an animal trail. He just announced in his surprised voice, "Hey...5 plus 5 is 10!" Curt and I looked at each other with a little bit of shock. He was holding up his two hands with five fingers each, and it was clear that he was thinking through the total number of fingers showing. Curt asked him about some other doubles, like four plus four. He would hold up one hand with four fingers and another with four fingers, count them, and then tell us the answer. We were in total shock that he was just coming up with this with absolutely no prompting from us. We decided to ask him about a non-double and see what his little overdrive brain did with that one. We asked him what two plus three was. He did his two hand finger routine and announced that it was five. This next thing is what made my jaw really drop. He said, in total and complete shock, "Hey...there are two ways to make five! There is this way (holding up one hand with five fingers) and this way (holding up two hands, one with two fingers and one with three fingers.)" I about fell over. I decided to press my luck and ask him about one plus four. The same routine. Once announcing that it was also five, he said "Hey...there are three ways to make five!" I love that his brain loves figuring things like this out, and that learning can totally happen by just being with his family and exploring the world.



Mackenna showed her growth this week in her fine motor, creative, arts and crafts abilities. Nana sent us these super cool sticker mosaic craft kits. They had got them in the mail and were really excited about them. I thought they were neat, but wasn't up for tackling a project that day. A little later, I was in a different room, and I heard Mackenna talking about completing one of the pictures. I was panicked about the mess she was making and the way she had probably ruined the craft kit and had done it all "wrong" since I hadn't explained to her ANYTHING about what she was supposed to do with it. I came into the room to see that she had nearly completed the high heel mosaic picture, and it looked just like the picture on the box. She had figured it out, got it out, and done it all on her own. It made me smile...a proud and surprised smile.

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They really are growing up - and I'm loving most every minute of it.