It's hip to be square

Like most kids, Zachary has a toy designed to encourage shape matching -- it's a little bucket with triangle, square, and circular holes in the lid, and corresponding plastic pieces to put in the bucket. In the past, he's just opened the bucket, dumped out the pieces, and maybe thrown them over his shoulder a few times. But yesterday, he picked up the circular piece and tried to put it into the circular slot on the bucket!

I've noticed similar intentional placement of objects at mealtime (and not just placement over his shoulder onto the chair or the floor). His tray has two recessed circular bowls on the sides, and recently he's started occasionally putting food into them. Sometimes he'll pick the food back up in a few minutes, other times it stays there for the remainder of the meal, as the 'reject' pile.

One of the cutest things Zachary has started doing in the last week is requesting reading time. He'll bring a book over to you whether you're sitting or standing (and he's actually pretty particular about which books he wants you to read), and then he waits for you to sit cross-legged on the floor before he climbs into your lap for reading time. He then happily sits there while you read, and turns the pages (occasionally even waiting until after you've finished reading the words on the current page). The challenge so far is figuring out what to do when the book is over. Sometimes he just wants to start it again, other times he'll respond to the suggestion that he go find another book to read. Reading time is so much fun with the little man that it's quite all right to keep reading the same books again and again.