K-A-I-A

So we were at Texas Roadhouse on Monday having dinner. They gave Kaia some crayons and a cheesy kids menu/coloring book thing. Mostly, Kaia takes the crayons and throws them on the floor.

I took one of her crayons and wrote K-A-I-A on the blank spot on her menu, then I pointed at the K.

"Kaia, what's that?"

She says, "K."

I point at the A. "What's that?"

"A."

I point at the I. "What's that?"

"I."

Point at the A. "What's that?"

"A."

"What's that spell?"

"Kaia."

...

She has these foam letters that we sorta use as bathroom toys, so when I hand them to her, I always tell her what letter it is. She usually repeats me and then takes it and sticks it on the side of the tub. I can only assume this is where she learned to read her name.

In other girl news, today when I dropped off Kaia at daycare, her teacher Sherry started talking to me. It started with eating, actually. For whatever reason, Kaia's finally decided to start eating at daycare again. This week, she's eaten chicken patties, mac and cheese and (drumroll) a freaking hamburger. She's never touched a hamburger before (though she's tried steak).

So as we're talking about how awesome it is that Kaia's eating, Sherry says, "She's also my little talker," and then proceeds to tell me how she walked around the class room saying everyone of her classmates' names (apparently no one else in the class does this). And then yesterday at lunch, Sherry said she was playing a new CD of christmas music, and Kaia leaned back from the table and said, "Sherry, Christmas songs."

Sherry said she was shocked, so she asked Kaia to repeat herself.

"Christmas songs."

There's a logic leap she's making there that sort of says she's connecting dots in ways I didn't think she could do yet. Kid astounds me.