Discovery

I love to discover that Ella has discovered something. Her newest things are singing, dancing and reading. Remember, she is a genius.

I sing to Ella quite a bit and always have. I sing when she eats, I sing when she is sad, I sing when she is just being Ella. I play all kinds of music in the car, from Neil Diamond to the Dixie Chicks to her Sandra Boynton CD's. Lately, she has started humming along. Sometimes, she seems to even get the tune close, which is spooky. Scott's mom and her sisters are all quite good singers. In fact, one Christmas, they and the female cousins busted out a dead-on rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus. It freaked me out. Who knows the words to that, let alone can sing it? Anyway, Ella may legitimately have some pipes on her.

The dancing is just beginning. I was curious about it and put the Backyardigans on for a minute to see what she did (it was the most likely place to find music at that particular moment). She went, "oooooh!" and every now and then, her little legs would start to move in time to the music. We will see how long it takes for the full-on baby dancing to commence. I totally *heart* baby dancing.

Finally, the reading. This happened today. We were looking at a dinosaur book in the backyard, under her favorite tree (okay, our only tree, but who is counting?) and she started to make her cute, husky little talking voice. She would pause, turn the page, and start again. This made my heart really happy. I LOVE to read. I have been reading to her since she was in utero, but have not managed to have a consistent story time. Yes, she is only 6 months old, but Charity, one of my Mommy Role Models surely had a perfectly-timed story session or two every day by the time each boy was a month old. But she is a teacher, so I have to cut myself some slack. We therapist types are a little more fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants ... sort of. Anyway, the fact that Ella "gets" books is a very, very happy thing for me.

I love my kid. I love that she loves things. And I love learning what she loves. It is great.