"A" Update

Since introducing you to Hodi-Dodi, we have confirmed that he is indeed an imaginary friend. Daily A goes on a trip to his house (which sometimes is in the living room, and sometimes is far, far, away). When he's not happy with us he'll ask for Hodi-Dodi's mommy or daddy, and when he gets in trouble he suggests that it might be the fault of Hodi-Dodi. My favorite Hodi-Dodi moment was when he (A) saw his reflection in our piano and said "hello, Hodi-Dodi!" He's also lobbying for us to name the new baby after his imaginary friend. And we still pray for Hodi-Dodi exclusively each night before bed. Its fun to try to enter this enormous imaginary world with him.

Since discovering that A can name the letters of the alphabet as well as tell what sound they make, he's wanted to do this more and more. Yesterday while reading a book he pointed to each letter, told me its name and its sound, confusing only the letter "V" with "W" for a moment. Whenever we see letters - in books, signs, computers, wherever - he wants to stop and spell the words and offer the sounds. The other day we were buying groceries, and he was excitedly showing the cashier all the names and sounds of the letters on our food boxes.

I guess the next step is reading, putting the sounds together to sound out words! The other day we were looking at a cookbook that had no pictures. One of the ingredients was an apple - A pointed to the word apple and said "Apple!" Even though he "read" it by memory and not phonics, that still counts, right?! His very first reading word.

Also, the other night in the bath, he counted to 10! This might not be earth shaking news for a toddler, but my husband and I were still pretty surprised and excited, considering that neither of us ever taught him to count beyond 5!

So, if I can celebrate milestone like rolling over and sitting for the first time, certainly I can include a blog post for reading first words and counting to ten, right?

He's full of cute expressions and phrases too. If you ask him how he is, he'll say "well." If he hears a noise, he'll say "what that noise be?" If you ask him if something is still bothering him, he'll say "alright now." And he loves to say "not ready YET" with a strong emphasis on "yet."

And no matter what, he's always immersed deeply into some very specific imaginative world that he wants me to join into. Its hard though - not being able to see what he sees, I'm always getting in trouble for putting the imaginary gas pump into the wrong part of the imaginary truck, or for standing in the ocean instead of the ground, etc.

Who knew that being two was so much fun?

Here's A counting to 10

And as a bonus, here he is singing the ABCs (not to confuse you - in the actual post I did not mention this particular talent).