Brown Bear and Toots

Last night I asked her if she read Brown Bear in her class yesterday. I have never read the book, but her teacher uses it as a fun distraction when I leave in the morning. So I have heard the title. Last night over dinner:

Me: "Anna, did you read Brown Bear today?"
Anna: "Uh-huh! Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do I see? I see a puppy!"
Me, smiling, a little freaked: "What? What was that?"
Anna, head bobbing side to side, sing-songy: "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do I see? I see a MEOW!"

I repeated her but left the ends blank for her to fill in what she saw. She actually taught me a little song! What the hell? She taught me a new little song! All the way to school she had me doing Brown Bear, with her filling in the blanks for things she sees.

I wonder if this is related to the ride home last night, when she was telling me "I see a ball. I see a bicycle! I see a airplane!" I recognized she was using sentences to talk to me. Pretty darned cool. It must have started with Brown Bear.

When I got to her school this morning I told her teachers what she taught me. They laughed and pulled out the book. Sure enough, that's how the story starts and goes on to talk about different animals and stuff.

So dang, she's learning, isn't she?

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Monday night:

Anna lets out an impressive stream of percussion from her diaper onto her booster seat at dinner. Paul and I look at each other from across the table, put our heads down, and giggle quietly. She picked up on this, ofcourse, and so put her head down to laugh, laugh, laugh along with us. Then she says "TOOT TOOT!" So we laugh some more, realizing this only encourages her. So she raises her hands to the sky, still in her booster seat, and dramatically yells: "TOOT TOOT! TOOT TOOT!" to the tune of "Stelllaaa, Stellllaaaa..."

Pretty dramatic and funny. She totally got the joke. And laughed right along with us, with our heads down, like some funny secret joke between the three of us.

She got the joke and she is growing up.