Easy as ABC

Let me first just say that I do not intend for this blog to be a place where I constantly brag about my child and chronicle every little accomplishment or activity in his daily life. This is not my online version of a Christmas card newsletter!

However, J has made some astonishing connections recently and as his mama and a Ready-to-Read-promoting librarian, I must stop and take note. Although I am not a fan of all of the Leap Frog toys and their attempts to digitize and animate every single reading- or literacy-based activity, I have purchased a few of their toys and J's been happy with them. One is the fridge alphabet. There is a magnet for each letter of the alphabet, and when you put a letter into the box, Leap Frog sings a song about that letter, explaining what letter it is and what sound(s) it makes. J has fun with this toy intermittently and I feel good just having the letters up on the fridge, assuming he is absorbing knowledge/recognition of them peripherally as he goes about eating his breakfast.

While coloring and doodling with J (a favorite pasttime of his), Daddy and I have gotten into the habit of drawing letters that stand for certain people's names. We draw a D for Daddy, an M for Mama, N for Nina, P for Papa, T for Tommy and L for Lucia. He is genuinely interested and so we continue to do it occasionally. I am not a hardcore drill sergeant-mama who wants her child to read at age 3 and go to college at age 14. But, I figure there is no harm in introducing J to print and words around us, as long as I am not placing any pressure on him to recall the information.

But, lo and behold, he has made the connections between these letters and the names we've told him they represent! We realize that now he is voluntarily on the lookout for alphabet letters, whether he is looking at a book, a toy, or the cereal box in the morning at breakfast. If he notices a letter we've talked about, he identifies it excitedly and repeatedly. "D! D, Daddy!", he'll exclaim.

I feel so proud of him. I share my enthusiasm with him, but remain committed to my desire that he will be our pacemaker, our line-leader, as we navigate through the experiences and "teachable moments" of his early childhood.

a new meaning for "dundee"

I'm not exactly sure when this started, but sometime in the last week, dundee has acquired a new meaning. It still often means "give me that", but it's now the word that J uses when he doesn't know what to call something. He also uses it as if it means "I don't know" when I ask him a question and he's unsure of how to respond.

I may just be an ever-doting mama, but this is really fascinating to me. Maybe every child has their own dundee. I don't know. It makes me wish I knew more about language development and linguistics. I took a couple of classes in college towards my Sociology minor that touched on these topics and I was intrigued then as well. (At least, until I learned that area of study also involved a LOT of statistics classes.)

In my career at the library, much attention has been paid to language development, vocabulary, and literacy in children as encouraging children's progress toward these milestones is one of the primary goals of storytime. I remember reading articles about how babies who are just weeks old will show preference to someone speaking in their native language as opposed to a foreign one. How astounding!

While on the subject of language and words, I want to take note of some of the impressive words and ideas J has mastered in the last week or two:

• In his ever-observant way, he astutely commented "big tree fall down" while we were walking by remnants of the wind storm. I think this may have been his first sentence!
• He completely shocked us by telling us that a cricket says "chirp chirp". (I've no clue how that seeped in--we've not even read The Very Quiet Cricket yet!)
• Phrases: he'll overhear us use one and immediately attempt it and tuck it away for later use; for example, "on the way", "all the time", "good girl Maggie", "oh my", "all better", "hold on tight".

In a nutshell, I suppose I should just say that J attempts to say whatever he hears. And I do mean WHATEVER he hears. Today while we picnicked outside of the library, he slyly said "stoo-pee bee" while Daddy swatted at the air muttering "stupid bee".