tiny bits

When I came home tonight Esme had six pieces of a nine piece puzzle in her room and put together - asking me where the other pieces were. I thought it had all been thrown away a long time ago - she has had so little interest in puzzles. She had mentioned 'the puzzle game' she needed help with a few days ago, but I had not seen it then. This morning she had said 'My shoe, I leave it early', when 'I left it there earlier' would have been more correct. 'As soon from we get from upstairs', instead of 'As soon as we get upstairs.' She had a harder time with that correction. She has been trying to use more time words 'early', 'later', 'soon', 'ten minutes', 'what time is it - is it eight?' (no matter what the clock says), 'that was a long time', 'will it be long time, two minutes?' etc etc.. She can still read the clock by 'it is the seven and the six' etc, but I am not sure she understands what it really means. Really confused me when she said the clock was 'nothing' the other day. It was 7:40, and both of the hands were on top of each other. She said the clock was 'white and now it is nothing, what time is nothing?' I think my brain spit up on that one.. she was right, in a way... but .. wow. Mark says - 'see what's there, that's my girl.' Mark said he asked her to watch for '12:30' on the digital clock to know when her fish sticks would be done today, and when he asked her to look again she said '1, 2, 3, 3 -- oh no, the food is burning!' So, maybe she does understand at least what is more and what is less?