letters & sciences

After tonight's dinner Elias as usual helped me empty the dishwasher. Then, because I can't load it again in his presence (he insists on "helping" empty it), I asked if he wanted to go in the other room and read, or play with blocks, or do puzzles. To my surprise, he said "blocks!" (he always says "book!"). Well, great; I love him playing with his wooden alphabet blocks while I look for signs of a future great architect or engineer. I got the blocks and started building a tower. He joined in, but wasn't fully focused: he kept fiddling with individual blocks. Then he thrust one in my face and yelled "D!" Sure enough, it was the D block. Good boy; so smart; now put it on top and let's build a tower. He went off to retrieve another block and came back saying oo! oo! oo! I said "yes, you found a blue block," a little disappointed because he wasn't pronouncing "blue" as well as usual ("bwooo") and wasn't that into my nice tower. But then I saw the block: a red "U." "Good boy!" now more enthusiastically--that was a new letter for him. Then he got another new one: "P!" and another "Q" (kkkwooooo) and another "I," and another "W," (oo-oo) and another, "Y" and "Z" on the same block. These were all blocks he found and volunteered names for by himself, and in the course of it all, only got one wrong. I am so impressed, both "objectively" and as a totally biased, adoring mom. I wonder at what age Hemingway or C.S. Lewis learned to read. Yet, as wonderful as his budding literary genius is, what about his spacial skills? Geometry? Physics? Then he made Mom even more happy by stacking a few block towers as high as he could reach. That's my boy!