Reading and arguments

Ethan turned 2 1/2 on the 11th. He is doing a great job reading now. He can usually figure out new words if we help him focus on one letter at a time, and he readily recognizes and can spell quite a few words, like Ethan, Stop, Exit, On, Off, Go, Ice, Hot, up, cup, car, dog, cat, box, etc., etc. Pretty cool! :o)

One neat but potentially frustrating thing about his being so bright is that he doesn't take anything we say as absolute truth. He's so independent and sure of himself that he will argue his point with us, even though what he's saying has no basis in reality! In the movie Elf, there's a little puffin...Ethan fights with Jim about that, calling it a penguin every time Jim says it's a puffin, even though Buddy the elf calls it a puffin, too. I read the nursery rhyme "Little Boy Blue" to Ethan a few weeks ago, and that started an argument about sheeps' dietary habits. Apparently, sheep only eat hay, not corn. Never corn!

My favorite argument so far happened on Christmas eve. We were preparing Ethan to go upstairs by explaining that he had to go to bed so that Santa could come into the house via the fireplace and leave him some Christmas presents. He looked at us, looked at the fireplace, and explained to us that Santa had to come in through the window because he's too big for the fireplace. That discussion lasted a WHILE. But the following morning, Santa had left the fireplace screen open on his way back up the chimney. See, baby? Proof that Santa used the fireplace! Now, if asked how Santa gets into our house, Ethan happily replies "The Fireplace!!" :o)

But puffins are still penguins, and sheep only eat hay...