I can read!

Lucy is rapidly moving closer to reading. Some things are just starting to make sense to her all of a sudden. For months I could ask her what sound a "P" makes and she would get it right. Then I would ask her what sound as "S" makes and she would make the p sound again. It just wasn't making any sense to her. Not any more. All of a sudden she is understanding basic phonetics and starting to memorize "sight words"- those are the words that many kids just memorize because they are so constant or so often repeated in easy to read books. She can now spell Mom, dad, stop, Lucy, Harper. She can also sound out many other words.
Don't get me wrong, she isn't picking up books and reading and we are just in the beginning stages, but the interest is there and she is constantly asking me to help her spell out things. She also loves to see a word and sound it out and "read" it to me. It makes her endlessly happy and she will "read" the same word to me over and over again all day long. Today she even sounded out dog and cat all by herself.
On another note, her writing ability has drastically improved as well. Not only is she able to write more letters but she has the ability to draw some basic pictures as well. Now all of the artwork you recieve from Lucy will have lots of "i, H, L, o, c,T, and p's" written on them- those are her "notes" to you. Her drawings all have her stick figure people on them, suns, bugs, fish, flowers, grass, and her version of hearts on them. I love her "people". They are the cutest with their big round bodies, stick legs and arms and faces drawn at the top of the bodies. She takes all of this work very seriously and is proud of each and every mark on a picture, especially signs or cards for people. She puts a lot of thought into what figures go into each drawing.
With all of this drawing comes color choices. I should say lack of color choice. Lucy loves black. When we have done paint your own pottery, I always know which piece is hers because it has the most black on it. The other day she was working on birthday cards for two of her friends and I suggested that she use only happy colors on the card. When she asked me to clarify, I said maybe red, orange, blue, green or purple would happy for a birthday card. She replied, "Well, black makes ME happy. I'm sure my friends like black,too." It's her art, I won't dictate or censor it, but I apologize in advance if your cards all look like sympathy notes. I just hope that her love affair for black stays in her artwork. I just can't imagine my blonde little Lucy coming home 15 years from now with black lipstick, dyed black hair, black clothes and nail polish. Maybe if I don't discourage the black now, then I won't be seeing so much of it later.
On the flipside, if she has ever, I mean ever, asked you your favorite color, you are stuck with it for life. She pulls out pink to use for Bon Bon, blue for Gramzie, Pop Pop, Grandma and Pops and red for Grandpa. You are forever assigned those colors, "because they are your favorite." I will be forever seeing green- good thing it's my favorite.