On Monday while the girls were at ballet, I sat down to feed Clarissa. To my surprise, Ammon sat down at the table with one of the tree ornaments. He proceeded to spend twenty minutes hacking it to bits. I figure the ornament is decades old and worth maybe a nickel. Would I pay a nickel to keep Ammon sitting where I can see him for twenty minutes? Yes. Yes, I would.
After this he proceeded to carol to me for another twenty minutes. I should have been cleaning and cooking dinner, but I just enjoyed sitting there watching him so much. He would fold his hands in front of him as they do in Sound of Music, and he would sing a carol to me before climbing onto a chair and clapping for himself. It was adorable.
It was also kind of amazing to discover how few words he actually knows. I feel like I communicate with him all day, but his vocabulary gaps were very apparent during this exercise. He only knows one or two words from each song, and the rest he has to hum.
After caroling, Ammon snuggled on the house and asked (with his limited vocabulary) to hold Clarissa. I held her in his lap while he giggled and pointed out all of the different body parts he knows. She kept grabbing his ear and cheek, and he would laugh before telling her “nooo!”. She, of course, didn’t understand, and so she kept at it until Ammon finally asked me to take her back.
It was such a delightful evening.