Swiper

Zack tends to walk off with things and put them in random places. I've learned to check trash cans before dumping them. I've found pacis all over the house including Reesey's crate, the refridgerator door, and Brian's underwear drawer! I've spent way too much time searching for shoes and other things that I last saw him with, and he's currently being blamed because I can't find my camera case or battery charger.

Guess what I couldn't find this morning?

Pink Phone and Memory

What do these two pictures have in common?

November 2011

April 2011

These pictures were taken the last two times we have eaten lunch outside at our little picnic table. The first picture is from today and the second picture is from April. The kids and I have eaten outside between these dates, but I was always paranoid about Zack falling backwards off the picnic table and busting his head on the concrete, so we always ate on the front porch. Today Breeley asked to sit at the picnic table and I decided it'd be fine. Then she immediately started asking me to get her pink phone. I went through every phone in her toys until I finally remembered that the last time we ate at the picnic table seven months ago, she played with this phone and told me she was talking to her cousin Emma. It is actually a real phone (given as a hand-me-down from Emma) and since we don't have a land line, I donated this phone to Goodwill months ago so that another princess could enjoy it. We have not mentioned or talked about it since, so I was shocked that she made this connection and remembered that she played with it the last time we ate at the picnic table, which was 1/6 of her lifetime ago!   

Breeley has shown other incidences of having a good memory. When she first started in the Three's class at school, when she was one of the youngest, they told me about a memory game they'd played. They put pictures of 12 different color paint cans on a table. The kids looked at the pictures and then the teachers flipped them over so the colors were hidden. Then the teachers would hand them a paintbrush and they were supposed to find the corresponding paint can. Breeley got all 12 on the first try with no hesitation! I wasn't totally surprised because I've often welled up with tears of pride while playing memory/concentration with her. Beginning when she was 2, she usually remembers at least one match that I don't, and I'm pretty good at that game!

Brian and I both have pretty good memories. I'm good a remembering faces and names (this is actually not always a good thing because it can creep people out if you say hello while they're standing in line at Target and they have no idea who you are) and I can remember dates, directions, and pictures. However, don't ask me to recall what I was doing last week, much less seven months ago! I'm really bad at remembering things we did or places I've been, which is partly why I started this blog. Brian has a great short-term memory with numbers and facts. He got extra credit in high-school algebra because he memorized the entire poster of pi (as in 3.1415...) that went around the classroom. (Yes, it is a bigger issue that he was so bored in math that he was memorizing pi, when he should have been in a higher-level math class!)

Brian and I both recognize the pitfalls of memorizing vs. learning, so I'm anxious to figure out ways to develop Breeley's memory in a positive way. For now, she's keeping us on our toes as she repeats back things we uneventfully told her weeks ago and makes connections among things that happened months apart.