My Oh My Dinosaurs!

It's time to have an update that's just focused on Noah.  Noah's latest obsession is dinosaurs.  It started right after Emily was born and has just escalated.  He not only has toy dinosaurs to play with, but he wants to know ALL about them--what's this one called?  What does it eat?  Will it try to eat us?  How big was it?  etc. etc.  We've checked out some books from the library so we could learn the proper names of the dinosaurs and he quickly memorized those and will correct anyone who he thinks isn't pronouncing the names correctly.  Yes, my 3 year old will correct your pronunciation of this 5 syllable dinosaur name.  It's a little riduculous.  The most recent thing is that he now has imaginary friends.  While I know that's a totally normal thing for his age, I think he's the first kid I've come across whose imaginary friends are dinosaurs.  We have to call and ask if T-Rex and Velociraptor can come over to spend the night.  His "friends" will run along side our car when we drive somewhere.  You get the picture. 

He still likes Buzz Lightyear and Toy Story but for now those guys have taken a back seat to the dinosaurs.

Probably his other love second only to the dinosaurs is his baby sister Emily.  He loves on her all the time.  We have been luck that his adjustment to big brother has gone pretty smoothly.  He likes to be a big helper and just waits for her to be awake so he can play with her.  We make up songs together to sing to her.  I love watching him with her.  When she started daycare last week I asked him if he was going to help Ms. Ruth take care of Emily and he responded with "Yes.  I'll make sure Ben (another younger boy at daycare) doesn't bite her (Ben has issues with this sometimes and Noah has experienced this first hand)."  Already watching out for his little sister!

I haven't had time to look around yet but we're thinking of trying to move Noah into a preschool setting for daycare soon.  His in home daycare has been great but we think he's ready to be in an environment where he can learn more and be challenged.  He's known all his letters and numbers for a longtime.  He can count to 100 almost perfectly and knows many letter sounds.  I think he would learn things quickly if he was exposed to them more often and right now I'm not having the kind of time to do that with him as much as I would like to.  Hopefully I can look into that soon.