Learning Update

I thought that this week would be a good time to give a quick update on all of the things that Ellie is doing lately that I have failed to report. She is learning so much, and picking everything up so quickly that sometimes I forget that most of these things are relatively new! It's hard to believe that six months ago we were counting the words she was saying and now we have entire conversations!

First of all, Ellie is counting really well these days. While she's known her numbers to an extent for quite a while, she now easily counts up to fifteen (which she calls five-teen) and points out when there are two of something, etc. When she climbs up stairs, she counts them (one stairs, two stairs...) and in general it just feels like she's gotten the hang of counting.
Ellie playing with her BFF Miles
She has also figured out her colors. She has had a mild understanding of some colors for several months (like when she was like 20 months old and pointed out that Marty ran a red light and he was supposed to STOP at a red light), but in recent weeks it seems that something has clicked and she completely "gets it" now. She points out the orange truck or the purple flower - calling out the colors without even being asked.

In the last month, Elise has also learned how to sing her ABC's and she can point out a few letters. Granted, her ABC song does not actually demonstrate knowledge of the alphabet (like how she sings "double-ex, y and z") but it's her favorite song at the moment (she sings it constantly) and she usually includes all of the letters (funnily enough, she often skips "e") and loves alphabet books too - our personal favorite is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

Finally, in the realm of new interests, Ellie absolutely loves puzzles. She has had several wooden peg puzzles that she's enjoyed playing with for about a year now, but in the past few months, she's started absolutely loving it. She likes to dump out all of the puzzle pieces from all of the puzzles and mix them up, then put them into the right puzzles. A few weeks ago, Marty got her a few jigsaw puzzles, which are for ages 3 and up and really seemed like they were going to be way too hard for her. They were too hard at first, but she is nothing if not stubborn, so she's kept at it and has gotten the hang of putting the jigsaw puzzles together once you get it started.
Ellie and Grandpa
That's all I can think of for now. In the first year of her life, she developed so much and things changed very quickly physically. Now we've seen that in the second year she has developed so much and things change very quickly cognitively. I am curious to see what her third year will bring.