Joey...I remember when...

Joey was talking to me today about what animals sleep upside down (Possums and Bats) what animals lay down like us (cats and dogs) and what animals sleep up-side-up! lol. (elephants and horses) I was surprised at how much he knew, and listened to all his tales. Any animal he sees on TV he can usually tell me what it is or even a fact or two about them. That got me going down memory lane...

When Joey was a little over a year old, we had gotten him a set of ABC animals for Christmas, 26 total, and he played with them constantly. There was a mat that came with them, so when he put the animal on the right letter of the alphabet it would tell him the name of the animal. He already knew how to talk at that age, and was starting to recognize letters, so it did not take him that long to match the letter on the mat to the letter on the animal.

I remember his grandma up in my house, sitting in his nursery with him (he was the only baby in the family to dote on at that time, so she came by a lot back then) and he was lifting up each animal to her face. She would ask what it was and he would tell her...without putting it to the mat to find out first! I had never seen that, but they were so cute together that I did not interrupt. He could not name ALL of them, but he missed very few. The ones he missed were things that had a likeness to others, like the millions of birds there are. He would get them mixed up. But Joey has always been interested in animals for as long as I can remember. Not only was he telling his grandma the names of 26 different animals at just over a year old but now at age four he is able to find likenesses in so many different kinds. He even asked how come a dolphin can breath air but a shark can't. How to explain 'mammals' to him? All I could say was God made them be able to do different things. One has warm blood and one has cold blood. He did not understand that AT ALL! lol.

And here is another hard question: "Why does the moon have a piece missing?" I told him that the moon is always round, but sometimes we can't see all of it because of the shadows on it. He looks hard at me, then lifts his brow like he knows I am tricking him, and says "Nah, it probably just has a cloud on it." and walked away! I am so glad to see the wonder in his eyes and hear how his mind works. He is truly a blessing and I can't wait to see what he does with the world.