Vinny Update

Vinny is an amazing young lad. He began speaking in sentences in earnest while I was in Seattle. The day I came home, he said to me, "Mama, I missed you all day!" (which is what I tell him every day when I come home from work, but I hadn't said it that evening).

He's said plenty of original sentences. Just yesterday he said to Jeff, "Open trash door, I throw away trash." When he's hungry, he says (for example), "Want some yogurt-toast" (that's toast with yogurt instead of jam).

He's also learned how to turn doorknobs, which means that he can leave his room if he's not tired enough to take a nap. (Or he could, until we installed the child-proofing on the doorknob inside his room.)

He's getting a lot better at feeding himself. He gets more than half the food in his mouth when he feeds himself, which I call a success. But he does enjoy rubbing the yogurt (for example) into the tablecloth or his clothes when he drips or misses his mouth.

He can recognize all the letters of the alphabet. He doesn't know the order yet but we've been practicing the alphabet song with him. He also knows his numbers, although again he doesn't quite have the order down. I like to count things with him. For example, he'll be playing with a truck and I'll ask, "How many wheels?" He'll usually "count" the wheels, although the wheels are actually a means to an end. The goal of counting, you see, is to get to ten (or sometimes, twenty). It doesn't really matter if you skip a few numbers or go out of order. Once you get to the target number, you celebrate. So usually, the reply to "How many wheels?" goes something like this:

"One, two, four, five, seven, eight, ten, yay!"

Close enough.