Method to her Madness

A few weeks ago, my friend Barbara told me about an online ABC game that her daughter likes. It combines two of Chelsea's favorite things, letters and animals, so it immediately became an obsession at our house.

Usually I let her play it in the morning while I unload the dishwasher or clean up in the kitchen. It's a good way to keep her somewhere I can see her (read: away from her defenseless baby sister) while I'm in the kitchen.

This week we're in Maine and as soon as we got here she started asking how we were going to play the ABC game. We fired up Jeremy's laptop and found it. I decided to sit with her while she played. It's one thing to trash our decade-old desktop, but quite another to ruin Daddy's laptop. The one with all his research data on it.

She chose the letter C first, not surprising since it's the first letter of her name. Then she chose X and Z, the letters to the left of C. After that, she hit all the other letters on the bottom row (V, B, N, M) in order from left to right. She proceeded to hit each letter on the middle row and the top row, again from left to right. After the P, she announced, "Now you're all done with ABC game."

I always wondered how she determined when she was all done. Should I have noticed that every time she finishes there's a penguin on the screen? Who knew that she was such an anal, er, I mean, methodical child?

Amazing the things you learn when you actually pay attention to your kid.