Collin can count!

Once again I am amazed at what a child can learn without really being taught. While we were still in Dubuque we got a suspicion that Collin might know how to count a bit as one day I thought I heard him say six, seven, eight after I had counted 5 magnets with him while we were playing. But with Collin he doesn't really like to "show" you what he knows so it takes some work to figure it out. So at different times I have tried little counting games, etc, just to try to see what he knows and here and there he would do something, but never reproduce it, so I wasn't sure. Generally if you asked him to count he would say "1, 2, all done!"

Then shortly before his birthday he very clearly demonstrated that he knew what 2 was. He had been enjoying learning to put Dan's and my socks on his feet--usually walking around with one sock for hours afterward. Then one day he put both on and came to me and said 2!--with great enthusiasm. And in the following days, he pointed out many other 2's he observed. One day there were 2 pools setup outside since there were cousins and friends coming to play and he went to the window and exclaimed Two! Two pools!

During the past week we have finally gotten to see just how much counting he is capable of. I asked him to count books with me and I paused a bit before continuing at different points and he would fill in the next number! Keep in mind we haven't really "taught" him anything--we just count things here or there in a book or while playing--but it wasn't as if I was trying to do it all the time to teach him or anything. And we didn't do it very often at all. He has just picked it up. Today I even got him to count to 10 while I took a video clip of it. He generally needs help in the middle around 4, 5, or 6 usually because he gets distracted (or goes back to his favorite "2"), but then he will continue after you give him a number. He doesn't actually count objects yet, of course, but that is how I can get him to count...for now...

So here's the video clip. You will need Quicktime to view it and I wouldn't recommend it to dialup users as it is over 2MB. Let me know if you have any trouble viewing it.

Collin Counts to 10

So this leaves me wondering what else he might have learned without being taught....hmmm...hopefully nothing too terrible!

Coming up for air

Since my last post, things have been anything but quiet! We have moved...twice, and travelled well over 4000 miles for ordination testing, church interviews, and family events and visits.

We first moved to my parents' house at the end of June since we had to be out of our townhouses in Dubuque (Many, many thanks Mom & Dad). At the end of July, Dan accepted a position at a church in Rural South Dakota. Let me stress that--Rural. The town we live in is comprised of the property for the church and parsonage, a circular road around it and then about ten houses on the other side of the road...at least 3 of which are owned by hunters that actually live out of state. :) We are about 15 min from the closest town and about 45 min to a "city" of any size. But actually we are looking forward to learning to live in this type of situation. Doing things like grocery shopping monthly and just planning ahead more in general. It should be very good for us. We also feel like things here are a bit more simple than our lives have been in the past as far as time commitments,etc. Hopefully that will prove true as we get to know the area more. The church has a membership of 140 with around 100 regular attenders of varying ages. We've been here two weeks now and are still working on unpacking things. The big things are mainly unpacked, but there are still quite a few boxes that need to be unpacked and/or gone through. The house we are in is an old farmhouse. Comparing it to our previous townhouse, we find it has more living space, but less storage space, so it leads to some rearranging, etc. We really like the character found in an old farmhouse. The people here have been extremely friendly and generous and we really think we are going to like it here.

My favorite part is that we have space on the main floor for a playroom. It doubles as my office and I am excited to do all sorts of fun things in this room! I'm pretty sure Dan's favorite part is the new gun cabinet we bought since all of the space is accessible to Collin here (we really needed one anyway...) I think Collin's favorite part is his new "reading nook" in his playroom. We put several pillows on the floor in the corner next to the bookshelf. He has been VERY into books lately and looks at them several times a day, so this is a great place to do it. He will be playing and finish one thing and appear to be thinking "what next..." and then say aloud to himself "read books" as he heads back to a pile.

Collin took a few days after each move to adjust. He is young and so of course has a hard time understanding all of the changes we are going thru right now. First we packed up our house and moved to Grandma/Grandpa's house...and stayed there....how confusing. But then it was even more confusing to return to Dubuque (for a wedding) but not stay at our old house. To get his point across, he would ask for "Mama's house, Daddy's house, please". He also regularly asked (and still does) about our neighbors in Dubuque whom we were good friends with (they have a daughter Collin's age and they really hit it off as friends). He did REALLY enjoy spending time with Grandma and Grandpa, which made the next move harder. Six weeks later we moved here and he was overtired and just really out of place for the first few days. But now he really has settled fairly well. He is sleeping much better and just getting back to his usual happy (and not quite so naughty) self. He of course continues to ask about family daily and really misses everyone, so we talk about the visits we will take "one day".

Yesterday, Collin had his first "play date". It was an impromptu visit by a neighbor's granddaughter. He was replacing our bathroom sink and brought her along. I was so glad as I had been thinking just that morning about how I might get to know some people that Collin might be able to play with some other kids. There are many kids in the church, but it takes time to get to know people and find opportunities for play dates. But now we have found that this 4 yr old girl will be right down the street all school year, so hopefully there will be more opportunities as it went well--even though she is older, etc.

Collin has changed SO much during the past couple months--he is really growing up. I hope to post many of the photos we have taken and write some "catch up" blogs to tell you what has been happening with us these past months, but wanted to start with the present first.