While I’m lying on the floor icing my back for a few moments before bed (using my new laptop), I thought I’d give a quick update here in the thread.
Two days ago PokerCub turned 17 months. He’s doing phenomenally well in my estimation, though I’m not sure how he’d measure up against some of his predecessors (kids that we looked to for inspiration), such as Owen, Henry, Cayden, Joey, Cammie, Robert, Eddie, et al (there are definitely others). Those superstars I doubt Cub could compete against, and thankfully, it’s not a competition. :biggrin:
On Cub’s 16 month birthday, I was getting something out of the basement while Cub was eating breakfast in his high chair. I was heating something in the microwave, and as I walked up the basement stairs, I could hear Cub. He was counting back “three… two… one…” then the microwaved beeped signaling that the items were done. I was stunned really. He was watching the numbers pop up and then read them (or even anticipated?). He hasn’t done this since, but he knows his numbers and likes to count a lot (though I never really hear him go past three too often, I’ve heard him go to five before). A month ago was his number phase.
Lately he’s been on a letter phase. He likes to sing the alphabet song, but he mostly skips around the alphabet unless one of us is signing a long. Perhaps letters were last week. This week he’s into animal sounds, and he knows more than we thought he did. PokerMom was quizzing him today in the car and he was coming up with the sounds faster than I could think of them myself. This was sort of scary to me. Then her and I started talking and he got upset! He wanted more quizzing!
I’ve always thought Doman was wrong about the whole “never test your kid” - Cub loves to be questioned so he can show off. Further, if you don’t start early, then they just might become averse to it.
Unfortunately we haven’t been able to do nearly as much as I’d like due to my ailing back condition. I cannot sit up for more than a minute to two without having issues. I had started making my own videos for him to watch, and he really seemed to like the first one I did. Since then, I’ve had my video camera with us whenever we’re out in hopes of capturing interesting things to put onto a video for him later. I’m hopeful that next week I can resume some of that production because he’s soaking up more than I can give him, and sadly, I haven’t the energy or wherewithal to keep up with him!
As for reading, we usually do 1 to 2 little reader sessions per day. We stopped doing little math for a long while, I just wasn’t in love with the way the curriculum progressed, so we do a little custom one-off stuff in the numbers tab. We started back up during his number phase, and I’m needing to customize a numeral presentation for him so he can get all his numbers 1-100 down. He’s really eager to learn right now. We do LMs perhaps every other day. I believe perhaps him singing the octave (or hearing it perhaps) got him interested in letters, though that would be difficult to attribute to a single particular thing. I do think maybe his love of the alphabet song might have been due to hearing the octave all the time. We usually do about an hour of video per day, but this is getting difficult because we’ve ripped through so much of it that’s out there. I try to get one reading bear session in the morning, and am cycling through about the first 12 of them at the moment.
The monkisee videos are great, but in the later DVDs she didn’t separate out the music videos which make great transitions from one topic to the next.
I’ve been hoping to do a full review on all the videos out there, because I certainly have some opinions, and strong ones at that.
Would you believe that 6 weeks ago, Cub was deathly afraid of going into the hot tub? We took several weeks off over the summer in large part because of my back and in larger part because it was too hot. The big pools we visited were too cold and wavy to really do solid work. I’d estimate that within 6 weeks or so, he lost his abilities, memories, and confidence. At first I thought it was just that he didn’t remember, but then I noticed his procedural memory seemed to fail also. I think this has significant ramifications for EL. You cannot assume that your child “has it” and move on from a skill at this age without periodically revisiting that skill (or EK knowledge, etc).
The good news is that I knew he’d get it back and get it back faster than it took the first time around. It took about 3 weeks of solid work for him to get to where he was… though he no longer cruises around the tub like he used to; he’s mostly inept at that now. A few weeks ago he became intensely curious and started sticking his face underwater by himself and looking around. He experimented relentlessly. He even demanded that I make him float and then put himself into a roll. Then he tapered off a bit for a few weeks, and the last two times we’ve gone out there, he’s wanted to swim/float independently the entire half hour working on his kick, etc instead of standing on the side playing with his toys.
In the last week, he’s become adept at stacking his foam bricks/blocks. It’s amazing to watch him balance the various shapes. When he gets it tall, he’ll declare, “I did it!”
I’d say he’s doing very well. I’m also open to any suggestions or ideas on what to do now.
ïŠ But I wouldn’t say that comparing is necessarily a bad thing – I think it’s actually quite helpful because it inspires a parent to do better and set higher goals for their own child.
And I think it’s wonderful you are teaching swimming to your son. I actually taught my son too late (at the age of 6). In school when he was asked to write about 3 things he disliked, ‘swimming’ was one of them. 
He even drew a picture of that!