Most days, I try to have a little casual time where Natalie and I work on her letters and numbers. Occasionally I see that some of it is sinking in, which is encouraging and makes me think that maybe we really could home school our kids (that’s the plan for now).

The other day I asked Natalie to write her name, and this is what she came up with all on her own:

Okay, so it may not look like much, but– the first letter is “N” (she really likes to write N’s but gets carried away sometimes), the second letter is “t” (obviously) and the third is “0”, which makes sense to Natalie because she pronounces her own name “Na-toe-lie” and routinely insists that there is an “o” in her name.

I asked her to do it again and she improved a bit on the N:

I know I’m just an overly excited parent, but I was really happy to see her little thought process playing out here. I’m sure sure she will be writing “Nata” (or maybe “Nato”?) before we know it.

She also likes to “i” and “w”, as seen here, along with more “t”. She has no interest in “a” for some reason.

PS- I promise there will be a Ben post soon, since he did have a birthday and all!

Well, this is a picture of how Natalie spent her first ballet recital.  She got a little nervous and didn’t want to go on stage, but it’s okay (though I think she regretted it later when her class came on and she knew the dance!).  Natalie has learned a lot of ballet steps since beginning the class though, and gave us a personal recital afterwards.  Perhaps there will be more performances in her future.