Organic Learning

Before homeschool even existed in my home, I was always eager to teach Maximus new things. When he was a baby, I could barely walk without counting the steps. I sang the alphabet song to him everyday. I would consistently tell him the color and shape of an object.
So I can say 'Maximus learned his alphabet when he was 2'...but truth is he didn't "know" the alphabet, he knew the song.
Things are a little different with River. When he was born, I didn't have the undivided attention to give him, but through him, I have learned lot about learning and teaching. Although, I have not devoted time to directly teach him things, he knows just as much as Maximus did at the same age. Maximus, knowing no different, will say "River, hand me the yellow Lego...or the blue...or the green". He can recognize a few (not in order) letters of the alphabet, and can count objects 1-2-3. These are things that he has not memorized, but that he knows, which makes a difference.

Here are just two things that they have learned without me directly teaching.
Maximus brought me an (empty) medicine bottle and asked was it child-proof. I responded with yes...and he said "well you shouldn't have taught me to read because it says pu...sh do...wn to op...en and it has arrows"...[speechless]!!
The other day, as we were getting ready to do school, I was in a bit of a hurry to get started and just started doing things, but River was repeatedly saying something that neither Maximus nor I could understand, he was saying "ple", "ple", "ple" (x100), to the point to where we had to stop and figure out what he wanted. What he wanted was to say the pledge. Everyday, we say the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, and this day we/I forgot, and he recognized immediately it. So we stopped, and I watched my children put their tiny hands over their hearts and Pledge to the United States of America.
In my experience, the nature of learning is much more valuable than forcing memorization.
I only have 1 goal for each of my boys' early education, and its not phonics or math facts (although we will still do them), its to learn to love to learn...something I wish I had been taught.