He is 3 years and 1 month old. She is 5 months, almost 6. They are a pair. I keep telling Jeremy that I know things can change and that my expectations were so low, but they adore each other and that blesses my heart. I can only pray they continue to find good company in each other. I can't tell you how many times Moses has abruptly stopped what he's doing to "go check on Cates." This happens often while she's napping and I follow him hoping he won't wake her. He gently pets her head, draws in his breath and says one of three things : "Awww...she's so cute." "Awww...she's so beautiful." or "Awwww...she's so expensive."
Don't worry, I haven't gone all Annie Leibovitz on you--they
were just both wearing jeans, Moses had taken his shirt off ages ago
for who knows what reason and Cates had just drooled through hers
(again) so mid re-dressing I snapped a few shots.
She likes to grab his hair (he lets her) and she makes him grin some of the most genuine smiles he has. He laughs when he is the target of her drool or sneezes and he can get her to stop crying. He holds her hand from his car seat. He sort of shares with her; when he takes one of "his" toys from her he always replaces it with something else. "She's a happy girl with a happy grin," he announces. When she wakes up from her naps he is on my heels galloping along to help greet her.
I caught this photo today in the car. Look closely at the upper right hand corner. It's hard to see in the convex mirror but look who's smiling back.
Since the beginning of January, Moses has been sounding out the letters in words. His new-found interest bordered on the obsessive; as trucks and buses passed us in the car he would attempt to sound out the letters printed on their sides, or he would manage to catch the first few letters of store marquees. Our car rides were punctuated with various vowel and consonant sounds, deconstructed words our percussive soundtrack. Even at bedtime I had to tell him that it was time for our brains to sleep, not sound out letters (any letters within sight in his room were fair game--the "Sony" brand on his ipod dock, for example). Seriously. Obsessive. But it has led to his best and most endearing mistakes thus far. Jeremy and I don't bother to correct him because we enjoy it so much.
The first time Moses sounded out letters was on his Hippo from Uncle Wilson. "L-A-M-I-N-A." (More often than not he sounds things out backwards. Seems to be a trend with this kiddo.) Thrilled that he'd done this both correctly and unprompted I (out of curiosity) asked him, "What does that say?" He drew his pointer finger across the word from right to left, once slowly as if tracing the letters, and once quickly. He looked at me confidently, nodded his head and stated. "Hippo." (pause) "It says 'hippo'."
Most of Moses's socks have a brand name written on them and he likes to sound out the letters. Regardless of the brand, to him, they all spell "socks." He has a lunchbox (that we call a suitcase) that has "Dr.Pepper" printed on it. Moses thinks that spells "suitcase." Any sports-team-looking logos/letters are automatically "Packers" or "Cowboys" depending on the day. You get the idea.
Fast forward to this display of "literacy." Mind you, in this video he gets his S's and C's confused and his L's sound like W's. Please also note that we wouldn't normally provide instructions next to our toilet--it's from our landlord.)
This week, Moses correctly sounded out and then read "TEXAS" from one of my sweatshirts!! Jeremy and I showed so much appreciation for his feat that now, most words he sounds out become 'Texas.' He's also correctly sounded out and read "Girl" from a shirt Cates was wearing ...now, he hadn't seen that word before, and he did indeed sound it out, but I just don't know if he read it or if he just happened to guess correctly. In conventional Moses wisdom one would think he would have said "It says 'Cates'"?
The last triumph of this and possibly the tapering away of the most adorable answers came yesterday. Moses sounded out (backwards) and correctly read the word "CAT' short for Caterpillar from a construction vehicle he saw while we were out. Still, I think the missteps will outnumber correct answers for the time being and I will continue to lovingly surround "literacy" with quotation marks.
