Out of a muddle puddle

On Saturday, somewhere between Battersea and Chelsea - as bus 137 trundled along its planned route over Chelsea bridge - Cheeks rattled off, 'D-A-N-I-E-L-L-E! That's MY name!'

It was the first time I'd heard her spell out her name correctly, all by herself. Her other spelling attempts always began well with letters 'D' and 'A', then got a little fuzzy in the middle, but always managed to end off confidently with 'ELLE'. The repetitive 'Ls' and 'Es' were easier to commit to memory? I don't know.

So Saturday's name spelling was no small feat. Not to her Papa and me at least. I think we'd always assumed she'd take some time to learn to spell her name, seeing the number of alphabets involved. But she finally got all the letters down pat.

Hubs and I gave her a thunderous applause. Right there, on the bus.

+++++++

Today, she finally learned how to write the numbers '5' and '9'. She'd always found writing these two numbers a little tricky and despite patient coaxing, would give up halfway.

For '9', I tried to make it easier by asking her to draw a circle with a long stick by its side. She took one look at it today and said it looked like 'a person's head with long hair'. After that, she wrote it out exactly the way she saw it.

'5' was more challenging. She'd always managed to get through the first bits - the horizontal then vertical line - but the curve was somehow beyond her. I asked her to imagine it as a hook, but to no success. But something must've clicked inside her today coz when I showed her the strokes, she suddenly exclaimed, 'the curve is round like a pregnant woman's tummy!'

She couldn't have written the number more perfectly after that.

I guess it's very true how children learn things at their own pace, and in their own time. It's now my turn to learn, and commit that to memory.