Month 22: Random Recollection

Excuse the cryptic title, but I can't think of a better way to explain it (I'm sure plenty of better ways exist...). "Random Recollection" has been Daniel's theme as of late. He can list off all kinds of things randomly, without them being present or even in his recent memory.

For example.

1) Prayers. Yes, he prays. Before bedtime and meals. It is one of my favorite things to watch. Daniel gets ready by folding his hands together, scrunching his face up, squinting his eyes (probably because he watches us, watching him, with "pretend" closed eyes...!) He begins his prayer with "Jesus, dadoo (thank you)..." and then he lists off a bunch of stuff, starting with the food in front of him: "dadoo... hah cog... strahbewy... hamp... shoclate milky..." and then he starts looking around the room (with eyes still squinted) for other things to thank God for. Lights. Window. Mama. Dada. Max. And THEN he looks towards the fridge for photos of other friends and family and names each one. Recently, he has incorporated requests into prayers... "mama... dada... bobby... more bobby... watch the bobby...." Bobby is his way of asking for Veggie Tales. At this point in the prayer, we just say "amen!" and move on to eating.

2) Old McDonald. Actually, Old McDonald is out of the picture. Once I sang "Mister Daniel had a farm..." it became Daniel's farm. Every time. He won't have it any other way. In fact, he runs around asking me to sing it, but as he cannot pronounce "farm" correctly, he ends up asking me (loudly, in public places) for "Nano's Fart". I kid you not. But back to the point... when we get to the "and on that farm he had a..." he lists of what is on the farm. Just an example of one of Daniel's farms: alligator, fan, ouch, cow, dada, eight, yellow, knee. It is always that random and hilarious.

3) Morning Songs. Thanks to his amazing daycare, Daniel loves singing group songs. His two favorites are "The Morning Song": Hello Daniel, how are you, can you tell me, who's sitting next to you? And so on and so forth. In the absence of a big group, he will make up who is singing. Last week, we sang through all the characters on his diaper (which he could not see). Ernie was sitting next to Cookie Monster who was next to Bert who was next to Zoe. We ended with Elmo. It was amazing that without visual cue, he recalled the whole Sesame Street gang. (His other favorite song is "The Jumping Song" but that's just because he can jump around like a maniac!)

Anyway. His little brain is developing in ways I cannot predict or understand. He's smarter than I imagined he would be at this age and honestly, that's a little scary. I want to be the mom who always has the answers... and at this rate, I'll be useless by the time he's in kindergarten. :)