Saturday, October 01, 2005

Rhymes with, looks like…

Orange! C says, triumphantly pointing out the orange table in Kleine Bär. Broon Bear. Blue boat. Red shoe, purple balloon. Everything this week is color and while she is showing off her yellow jacket to me before we go out on a walk, I am marveling at how she learned colors, in English, despite her lazy parents. I’m guessing the credit lies with one of her babysitters, Lucie, who is part of our family of wonderful sitters and the most creative of them all. Sometimes I take notes on the songs and games that she teaches Caroline, so that we have something to do on rainy Saturdays when C gets tired of my favorite rainy day past time - creating personalized coloring books (it doesn’t require any talent I don’t normally possess except complete self mortification – usefully stocked up so that I don’t care when my carefully rendered drawing of Christopher Robin gets annulled by magic marker for the third time in five minutes).

Our relationship with books has changed generally, because Caroline likes to help out now, listening carefully until it’s her turn and then jumping in with the rhyme or the key word on a page. Dr. Seuss is great for this, and I’ve become a fan of his nearly indestructible board books. Mr Brown Likes to Moo, The Foot Book and There’s a Wocket in My Pocket all have Caroline rhyming or even singing along (Try Mr Brown set to "Turkey in the Straw"). Sometimes she guesses the rhyme when we’re reading a new book and it is always fun to hear her guesses. There’s a Nink in the... "Pink! "


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