One - ah ah ah; Two - ah, ah, ah, Three - ah, ah, ah

The blossoming of a toddlers mind is a brilliant experience to behold.  It's hard to fathom the days when they lay on their backs just staring in wide eyed wonder at me.  Now they seem to explain the world to me as seasoned experts.  The leaf comes from the tree.  The bigger cat is the momma cat.  When you fart in the bathtub that makes a jacuzzi.  The most fantastic jump, however, has been in their problem solving and comprehension skills.  If you missed the tie in from the title of today's post, it's The Count from Sesame Street - who the girls have taken to imitating in the car. ... it makes me laugh every time.  "One - ah, ah, ah; Two - ah, ah, ah".  When he does it I get frustrated that he's simply an undiagnosed, purple OCD sufferer. ... but when they do it it's undeniably cute.  Anyway, Gina and her mom had a jewelry boutique at the house this weekend, so the 4 trouble makers (the girls, Karma and myself) had to make scarce for most of the days.  On Saturday we went to my moms to hang out, although my mom was at Lowes' from 10am to 7pm redesigning her kitchen so we never actually saw her, so we chilled with my sister and my aunt.  Both of them being teachers (my sister an 8th grade English teacher and my aunt a retired 2nd grade teach for some 40 years or so) it peaks my curiosity to hear their opinions of the girls' development.  You see, I'm the kind of guy who needs verbal reassurance.  Constantly.  I'm basically a needy, unconfidant pain in the ass.  It spills over to my girls as well.  I feel they're brilliant, beautiful, wonderfully behaved little angels - but I start to wonder if I just have rose colored glasses and the rest of the world disagrees.  So having two teachers - albeit close relatives who would never say anything to hurt my feelings so if they felt differently they'd never tell me - reassure me was very. ... reassuring?.  After dinner we went for a walk to look at the Christmas lights in the neighborhood and I was having the girls show off their letters: we can recognize "A" for Arianna, "G" for Genevieve, "K" for Karma, "D" for Daddy and, of course, "M" for Momma.  And we were practicing our counting (to five by ourselves and to 10 with a little support).  After I had Arianna count the reindeer on one of the lawns (there were four) my aunt turns to me and tells me that she has Kindergartners in the class she volunteers for (by the way, sign of a good teacher is the one who retires and still volunteers to teach everyday) that still have trouble recognizing the first letter in their name.  That being able to count objects (rather than just numbers) is extremely impressive for 2, and that my childrens' grasp of geopolitical spacial patterns is well above that of a 5th grader. ... ok. ... last one she didn't say out loud.  But I'm sure she thought it.  None the less I still took great solace in the knowledge that my kids are right on track, if not a little ahead of it.  I think that's the hardest part about parenting, especially for the first time.  You don't really know where in the pack your children are at this stage.  I don't have A+'s and C-'s to give me an indicator.  I have a mumbled A, B, C song and counting to 11 (after which Arianna always jumps straight to 16. ... for some reason she loves that number).  So for the next few weeks I'll remain confident in her assessment. ... and then I'll need reassurance once again.  All this aside, I do have to share one quick story with you.  When we were looking at the before mentioned Christmas lights, this one house we came on had a brilliant lawn display.  Reindeer everywhere, Santa on the roof,  a chorus of snowmen, all the happy, sing-songy goodness of Christmas; of course the garage door was open, and inside the home owner was happily cleaning out a shotgun. ... [I'm singing] one of these things is not like the other.  All I'm hoping is, if reindeer are in season, he has his proper tags.  Because that's an easy way to get on the naughty list.  [I'm singing again] Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say "Rudolph with your nose so bright-" BAM! "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"