the sorting game

remi's really into sorting things these days. on a very basic level. like, she moves all her animals from one side of her to another, one at a time, then back to the original side. this can go on for quite some time (and believe me, i'm pretty thrilled about her ability to self-entertain!).

but i guess what i find really interesting is more about the exclusion. like the other night at grandma's house (we're staying with drake's mom right now), she dumped all her bath toys into the bathtub, and i added this toy that was sitting on the side of the tub. and she got very upset.

"aaahhhnnn! aaaahhhhnnnn!" pointing to the toy, until i figured out the problem and removed the offender from the crowd. the offender then had to be returned to the place it had come from before all was right with the world again.

and i can't quite figure out how the exclusionary system works. in this case, you might think "new and nonfamiliar vs. familiar." but later we were piling animals into her sled to go for a ride around the living room, familiar, nonfamiliar, new, old. and all was harmony until the ape got in. she picked out the ape and tossed him aside. i went to adding animals and tried the ape again.

"aaahhhnnnn! aaaaahhhhnnnnn!" and out he went again. why the ape? who knows. perhaps he'd been a bad ape. perhaps she just didn't like his looks. at any rate, today he's out of the doghouse and into the sled.