Smarty Pants

It has come to my attention that I have a brilliant 2 1/2 year old. No, seriously. I'm not just saying that because he's my kid. I'm saying it because it's true.

He's been able to spell his name for awhile now. No, he can't write his name, but when I write it, he will say the letters, "A-I-D-A-N." He also recognizes the letter A. Anytime he sees it, he yells, "A! Aidan!" Pretty impressive for a 2 year old, right?

But that's not all. The other night at church, I was informed that he was putting puzzles pieces together and matching up numbers more quickly than the other kids in his class. I was told that she could really see him thinking and working things out more than the other kids his same age. Also, my mom has a tub of toy animals that were my brother's as a kid. Aidan was sorting through them yesterday and naming them all as well as saying the sounds they make. Pig, cow, seal, whale, shark, duck, horse, buffalo, triceratops, stegosaurus. Yes, that's right. Not just dinosaur, but triceratops and stegosaurus. Aidan has a shirt with two pterodactyls on it. He had been calling them flying dinosaurs, so yesterday, I told him the name pterodactyl for the first time. He proceeded to call them orange pterodactyl and green pterodactyl for the rest of the day.

Did you know that it is advanced for a child to know their colors before the age of 3? I didn't. Not until my sister told me she read that in a book. Apparently, you can start teaching it to them before then, but it will be a hard concept for them to learn. Huh. I didn't know this, so I taught Aidan his colors already. It wasn't a hard concept for him. He knows orange, blue, green, yellow, white, pink, black, and purple. Does that mean he's also advanced for knowing his shapes? He knows star, heart, circle, oval, square, and triangle. He knows opposites too. Up and down. Upside down and right side up. On and off. Clean and dirty. Wet and dry. Happy and sad. Stop and go. Fast and slow. Open and shut.

What can I say? He likes to read. He learns a lot from books (and some from Elmo too). My kid's smart and I'm pretty stinking proud of him.