Snapshot of JF, continued

After I published Friday's post, I kept remembering more things about JF that I should have included in the snapshot:

• He can run, jump, and climb. On the playground, there are some ladders that he can climb up, but not down.
• He recites numbers up to thirteen. Sometimes he counts accurately (one number per item) up to about nine, but sometimes he skips or double-counts items. When counting my fingers, he's accurate until I show him six fingers: He starts over at "one" because he's only looking at the second hand.
• He recites the alphabet (as part of the ABC song) clearly, except for the letters LMN. His PEP teacher recently said that he recognizes capital letters well, but we need to work on teaching him to recognize lower-case letters.
• He uses the wrong pronouns, echoing exactly what is said to him instead of changing "you" to "I" and vice versa.
• He likes to pick up a handful of things and watch them fall from his fingers. This includes sand, gravel, mulch, cereal, and raisins. Sometimes he dumps these things on his own head.
• He loves music in any form: He listens to CDs, radio, or musical toys. He "plays" instruments like the triangle or xylophone. He loves to sing to himself.
• When he is upset about something, he might calm himself down by singing a song or by asking for a tissue to wipe off the tears. Then he asks, "Is that better?" He wants someone to ask him that, so he can say, "That's better."

Also, on Saturday morning, for some reason I decided to take note of each thing he said (that I could understand) from 6:00 AM until 9:00 AM. Almost everything was a script:

• "It's hot! Very, very hot!" It was lukewarm oatmeal.
• "Ready for daycare?" A moment later, he answered himself with a sad voice, "No, no daycare today."
• "Topple to ya!" Top of the morning to you!
• "Hmm, let's see." From Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss.
• "It's a honey-sweet day, whenever we play, I hope forever friends we'll stay." A song from Winnie the Pooh LeapFrog book. Also, "One bounce, that's it Pooh, two bounce, woo hoo hoo, three bounce, you did that very well."
• "A mouse ee tock, a mouse ee two, hick hick tock!" He's still figuring out this song.
• "Open it."
• "Turn it off."
• "No, we do that!" Telling himself that we don't do that. He often says this while doing the very thing he's not supposed to do, as if to say, "Mommy, I have no self-control, please come take this away from me."
• JF was opening the battery compartment of the remote control, so I took it away from him. He pointed away and said, "Go!" Then, "Go away class!" (One of his PEP teachers recently mentioned teaching JF how to say, "Go away" in an effort to reduce his aggression in daycare. It may be that he is hitting/hair-pulling/whatever because kids are bothering him and he doesn't know how to tell them to leave him alone. So I didn't take offense when he told me to go away. I can only guess why he added "class" in there.)
• While playing with wooden blocks, he said, "What color?" The one he was looking at didn't have any paint, so he said, "Stripes."
• "Night-night." He was saying good night at 8:30 AM.
• "Listen."
• While pretending to talk on the phone, or while opening & closing things, "What? Buggaber? Okay. Okay yes. Bye bye." We have no idea what Buggaber means. If he's pretending to talk on the phone, he'll end this "conversation" with hand motions like pressing buttons on a phone.
• "More water?" Then he answered himself, "Right here! On the table!"
• "What's Daddy doing?"
• "Piggy-back!"
• "Bye, see you later."

Okay, now I'm going to make myself stop obsessing over this snapshot of JF's abilities and quirks.