Happy Birthday Mommy

Puzzled

One of Sorin's current favorite activities is doing puzzles, and he's really good at them (in my totally unbiased opinion). He can do 24-piece puzzles with fairly complicated patterns, which I think is impressive for 2 and a half! He started with a 9-piece puzzle from Auntie Nicole. My teaching tactic was to find pieces of a particular object, for example a school bus. He then graduated to 12-piece puzzles. These are by Melissa and Doug and come 4 in a small box. One set is of vehicles (fire truck, cruise ship, motorcycle, airplane) and the other (from Auntie Ali) is of farm animals. These he can do in no time. Part of it, I think, is memorization, but part of it is problem-solving (see below). Sorin also has 2 24-piece floor puzzles. The first, from Aunt Shirley and Uncle Geoffrey, features jungle animals (in the photos). This too Sorin can whip through. What I found interesting is that for the first few times he assembled the puzzle he did it in the exact same order. But as he's become more comfortable with it he varies the order. The second 24-piece floor puzzle is a quilt of the alphabet. My ulterior motive with this one was to familiarize him with his letters. Because it's so busy the tactic is a bit different and requires looking more at the picture than finding bits of an object. But Sorin is learning how to do this, too. Finally, the ultimate test (to me) was when he went on a play date last week and assembled a Curious George puzzle he hadn't seen before, which definitely required problem-solving and not memorization. That's my smart boy!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2008!

This holiday season was filled with family, friends, and lots of excitement. We traveled to Nonna and Nonno's house for Christmas, and Oma and Opi were able to join us for a few days afterwards. Upon our return to New York we received a visit from Auntie Ali. And Sorin rang in the New Year (well, almost) with younger friends Jacob and Liana. Following are some pictures documenting the festivities.

Sorin visiting with Santa:


Playing with his new Christmas trains (or is it Dada and Nonno playing?):


Opening his hobby horse from Aunt Marian:


Visiting with friend Cecilia:


Visiting the horses with Nonna:


Playing doctor (while eating out at a restaurant):


Snuggling with Auntie Ali:


With little friends Liana and Jacob: