The Number Field

Over the past few weeks, Elena has been spending a lot of time with her Colors book. It doesn't have a story, instead each page shows pictures of a bunch of objects that are all the same color. Most of the colors represented are the standard primary and secondary colors: blue, yellow, red, green, purple, and orange. At the end of the book, they go a little crazy and include gray and magenta.

The other day Elena woke up early from a nap--Jenny had hoped to finish the book she was reading before Elena woke up, but didn't quite make it. Instead she hoped Elena would play quietly by herself for just a few minutes so she could finish the book. But even those hopes were dashed, as Elena immediately found her Colors book and clambered up onto the futon next to Jenny, then shoved the book into Jenny's face for some reading time.

Last night, Jenny was in charge of the enrichment activity for Relief Society at the church, and I wasn't able to make it home in time to take care of Elena before the activity started. This wasn't a big problem, because childcare was provided at the event, so Jenny left Elena with the young women in charge of the nursery. I went by there as soon as I could so I could say hi to Jenny and bring Elena home before bedtime. Jenny invited me to have some dinner--the women had already eaten and there were plenty of leftovers.

When we finished, I headed towards the nursery, but before we even got there one of the young women came out and asked "Are you Elena's parents?" She then told us that they had given Elena some Froot Loops, and before she ate them she arranged them by color, all in a row. Aside from some extra yellows, she had two of each color, so she ate the extras first. Then she ate the rest in order, one color at a time. When I got into the nursery, I saw her finish off the last of them, and the other girls corroborated the story. They said that our baby was "beyond smart."

Of course when we got home I tried some administering some color knowledge experiments for her, but they weren't very conclusive. Certainly not as definitive as watching her take the initiative to organize Froot Loops before eating them.