Happy Daddy, Seven Eight

One of the things that's wild about having a child in day care is that she learns things without your realizing it. Then suddenly, she springs this new knowledge on you. She did it twice this weekend and was very proud of herself both times.

On Saturday, when Josh woke up, Miss Mouse and I came to give him hugs and I encouraged her to "say Happy Birthday to Daddy!" She responded by singing an off-key, but recognizable, bar of the Happy Birthday Song. I was very impressed.

For the rest of the weekend, she would chirp -- "Happy Daddy!" whenever she was prompted to wish him a Happy Birthday. Works for me.

Then, while taking her bath, Miss Mouse was chatting with her rubber duckies when I realized that what she was saying was numbers -- and they were in the right order. So I asked her to count to ten with me. She had one through four down pat, skipped five and six in favor of moving directly on to seven and eight, and seemed unaware that there were numbers above eight.

I fear that that first time through was our best attempt, though. In subsequent counting episodes, Miss Mouse's enthusiasm for Seven and Eight began to take over and she kept moving them up earlier and earlier in the sequence until she would go straight from one to seven and never mind all those other numbers.