Bless You!

I was upstairs with Lennon the other day and I sneezed. Immediately, a little voice from the other room called out, "bless you." I am so blessed to be able to be near my grandchild. I am even more blessed that he is an early talker. He has been communicating with words for a very long time now and he is still two years old.

It is incredibly fascinating to know what a two year old thinks and what his reasoning is behind his actions. I don't have to second guess him and his insight is wonderful to hear. Of course all the processes are not completely developed yet, but they are even more endearing when they are next to others that are. For example, he knows the sounds all the consonants make, so he looks brilliant when I ask what dog starts with and he says "D." But let me ask how to spell a word like car and one day he will spell it while the next he will say, "C...A......bcdefghijklmnop... and go on to sing the alphabet song. We are working on his phone number now. He can count almost to a hundred, with a few prompts. He can actually point and count easily up to ten things, like his superheros. He can take one superhero away and count the nine that are left and so on. But the phone number? So far we get to 828-648, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 ......! Even though he wants to be able to call Daddy and can identify the numbers if I tell him to push six, two, eight, etc. Rattling off the number means nothing to him yet. A mind is an awesome thing and I don't think I realized how fascinating it is, even though I once taught three year old preschool.

Being allowed to be one on one with just one child is so much fun. It doesn't seem to be any harder for him to learn to speak than to count, or read. It's all just one big happy adventure. I wonder what he will remember of any of this? I am not such a quick learner. He must have fifty superheros and I know the names of only a handful while he knows all their names and who they are in "real life." Clark Kent is Superman. That one I know, but he is patient with me and will repeat names over and over, infinitely kind, breaking them down into as small a sound as I need to finally get it.

He is learning to debate too. He will ask for a sandwich, or hear me in the kitchen and run out saying, "What cha thinking about?" He likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Blue or red jelly, depending on the day and sometimes will say, "how bout we jus forget the peanut butter?" He finds his own body interesting and mysterious. Going potty is still a big deal. He must disrobe, get his stool out and wait to see if "its" going to work. Sometimes he just looks up and shakes his head, "It's not working now."

My sister brought him a swing to hang from a rafter, or tree and not having a place to put it, I just hung it up, temporarily, in front of my yard swing then forgot about it. We were bringing in the groceries yesterday and I looked up to see him trying to sit on his swing, but of course it was too close to mine to really work. He came over and tried to explain to me that I needed to move it, there was not enough room where it was. He loves to solve problems and will bring me my glasses, or a flash light, or whatever else he thinks might be useful.

Most of all, though, I love it when he must find a way to communicate about something he does not have a word for. He will describe the shape, the color, the size, what it is for, even pointing out things that are similar in some way. It is fascinating to see what he considers similarities sometimes and once I understand, it usually makes sense. The other thing he does is when I will say to stop doing something and he will tell me, "but I want to do that!" There is no artifice here. He knows what he wants to do (and usually why.) "I like to put Ironman in the freezer." "I like the way the water looks when I pour it from here."

He is a whole thinking, problem solving, caring little creature and I wouldn't know half of it if he didn't talk to me.