Toddler School

Lately I've been thinking more about "educating" Luke a bit and I've found him to be a little bit "teach resistant". You can't teach an old dog new tricks and you can't teach a stubborn 2-year-old that not all circular objects are balls and not all colours are green. I was going through one of his books with him which had a few shapes in it and every time I got to circle he would say, no, ball! And so I'd say, yes, balls are like circles, they are round like a circle, and he'd say, no, ball! So, because we have enough things to argue about these days I'm letting him win that one and for the time being, circles are balls. The ABC song isn't happening around our house either, I think I mentioned in a previous post that the song always morphs into something else. Today it was Luke, Sam, Mom, Dad which was a nice version. Sometimes it's just whiny babble which I could do without. And then there are his colours. Ask him what colour anything is and it's always green. He looks so smart when the thing is actually green, but that doesn't happen too often. And then there's counting. We've been struggling to get Luke to eat more healthily and so we're bribing him with M&Ms. As I'm writing this it seems sort of counter-productive but whatever. At least he's eating more than just beige food (The boy loves his carbs). So after lunch today Julio asked him, do you want one, two or three M&Ms, to which he responded, one, a green one. So he had his one M&M and because I ate almost all my lunch I got a bunch of M&Ms (purely for modeling sake, I've got to set a good example). So, of course Luke wanted some of my M&Ms and so I asked him, do you want 1, 2, or 3? He was onto us now and wasn't going to mess up by just asking for one, so he said, I want LOTS!
So, although he hasn't mastered his abcs or 1, 2, 3s yet, he has a very positive image of school. All of his cool, older cousins go to school and so it is obviously the cool thing to do. We talk a lot about Alexandra or Claire or Jake or Josh going to school and without fail he'll say, kick a ball? He's convinced that all kids do at school all day is kick a ball. I've started to tell him that kids read books, sing songs, etc, and then he'll usually ask me, kick a ball? Thank goodness for gym class, at least I know Luke will like ONE subject! Luke has often had trouble enjoying childcare at our church, but we've almost licked that this year by referring to it as "church school". Who would guess that by calling something "school" it would be more appealing?!?
And then there is music, Luke loves the piano. We have a digital piano which plays a variety of classical pieces and Luke knows how to turn it on and get it to play. I think we all know the first "demo" song far too well. And he always wants me to sit with him, so a few weeks ago I thought I'd give him his first piano lesson. We played all the C's and then all the F's and he kind of got it I think. And then a few days later he asked me, do C's?
My mom came over the other day and was playing some songs on the piano for him, and after playing song and after song and after song, she paused and he looked at her and said, What else? So, there's a little glimpse into the academic life of our sweet Luke.