Jake is 5. He's just finishing up his first year of Kindergarten. He had a pretty rough winter, with first his dad then his mom in the hospital. His mom's recovery was particularly awful, with two midnight rushes to the hospital. But he's a champ.
So anyway, today he comes up to me before I take him to school. He's drawn a can of his mother's favorite beverage. He's drawn the word "Coke" on it. The "C" looks a little like an "E" but it's perfectly legible.
Wait. We don't have any cans of this in the house at the moment. He's doing it from memory, right?
Wait wait, here comes the good part.
He remembers that his mom usually drinks DIET coke. So he draws another can, from memory. Then he shows it to me and asks if he's spelled it right. Here's what the can said:
"Dyit Coke."
Not too shabby, eh? The kid's a genius, I tell ya!
Aren't kids great? My oldest just graduated from high school last week, and those old memories are precious. Keep writing stuff down and videotape what you can. I just made a DVD of the early years, and it's priceless.
I have no kids, but my oldest niece (goddaughter) just had a baby and its a real shocker that precise moment you realize that they are all grown up.
Oh that's so cute. He's such a big boy now. :)
I agree with Randy that you should write everything down. Tape as much as you can. Before you know it they're all grown up and you're going "Where did all that time go?".
And from his particular misspelling, it seems he has learned to read with phonics somewhere in the mix, which is a Good Thing!!!
"Call Mensa! Dean's got a live one on his hands!"
Dean, he sounds adorable AND brilliant.
When my son was that age he asked me: "did you learn to read by a big window?"
An example of how kids can give you a 360-degree perspective shift:
My quiet despair over hearing a Ramones song used in a slick ad for a cell phone disappeared as soon as I noticed my seven-year-old singing along.
"Hey, ho! Let's go!" Then: "Dad, what's a bizkeeg bot?"
"That's Blitzkrieg Bop, son."
"I like that song, Dad."
"So do I, son. So do I."
Ah, life.
Dean:
The acorn don't fall far from the tree, eh? I've met him and he's a keeper.
Reminds me of an evening when I was sitting with my son at bedtime. I'd read him a bedtime story and then sit in a rocking chair by his bed reading the newspaper (to myself) waiting for him to fall asleep. My son has never gone quietly into that good night.
On that particular evening he's laying there wide awake but quiet. I can hear the clock ticking as I turn the pages of the newpaper as quietly as I can, waiting for him to settle in. Suddenly he sits up and looks at me and says,
"Daddy, what are eyebrows for?"
You can't make this stuff up...