Getting It

We're at that stage where Mal frequently does stuff that is surprising, as it shows abilities we didn't realize were there and that are a lot of fun to watch develop.

He's in a weekly class called "Music Together," which has been great on a couple of levels. First, they're very open to active kids and different behaviors in class, so he's had a lot of leeway to be himself but then participate when he'd like. He adores having lots of percussion instruments to try out before class, too!

Along with ten weekly classes, we received a song book and two CDs (identical; one for car and one for the house). There's a traditional-Jewish-sounding song called "Bim Bam" where they do the verse three or four times, speeding it up each time. This had never been mentioned, but once when we were in the car listening, in the break between the first and second rounds, Mal said, "Faster!"

We saw "Beauty and the Beast" at the movie theater a couple of weeks ago. Several days later, I was singing, "She looked this way; I thought I saw. And when we touched, she didn't shudder at my paw. No, it can't be. I'll just ignore... But then, she never looked at me that way before," and Mal said, "Beast!" 

Then Monday, we were drawing on James's white board, and James had drawn a daisy (or sunflower?) so I added a rose. Mal then asked me to draw Beast (I'd show you, but it's truly terrible). THEN he requested that I add Belle, specifically with a blue marker. As I drew her, he said, "The rose! Don't touch it, Belle!"

Yesterday, we'd gone to my parents' house and Mal was drinking out of a Mickey Mouse cup. My dad asked, "Is that Donald Duck?" Mal said, "No! It's apple juice!"

Oh, yeah, and the other day we were at McDonald's, and he looked at his juice box and said, "100 juice!" It actually said "100% juice," but I wasn't going to split hairs.

He loves to pretend. He'll be a doctor (which he has learned from Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood) or a fireman... or, more recently, a garbage man. He does this by hanging on to the side of my shopping cart while I push it through the grocery store.

Here he is putting out a fire.

There's so much stuff, none of which I can remember when I actually sit down here. So here are a couple of videos of Mal playing tonight.

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