It's been rather momentous around here, what with all the milestones. I think it was about two weeks ago that Isaac suddenly sat down and wrote his name. Well, before that he wrote "zoo." But other than zoo and a capital I, he didn't write intelligibly at all. He claimed he could write, though. One time he filled a page with mysterious scribbles to demonstrate his writing ability. I said, "Oh, that's lovely. What does it say?" To which he indignantly replied, "You know I can't read!"
Well. Now he can. He can read all sorts of things. I got these little flash cards as a part of a leap frog package, and so I've been making little 3-letter words for him out of the cards. Like, hop, pet, hen, sun, that type of thing. He sits and sounds them out and, well, READS them! There are no pictures or clues as to what the words are. He just flat-out reads them. I still can't get over it.
So then yesterday I was sitting in the living room nursing the baby. In the dining room, Isaac was having a snack– freeze dried strawberries. I heard him in there reading the label: "Juh. Uh. Ss. Tuh. Jjjuuuusssst. Just. Just. Okay. JUST. Or. Guh. AAA. NN. ic. Orrrrrrggggaaaannnnic. Ic. Organic. Org? Just Organic Strawberries!"
Hallelujah! Wow. Reading! Incredible. So last night there was an altercation at bed time, in which stuffed animals were thrown and Daddy walked out of the room, refusing to put Isaac to bed any further. Much adoo, much adoo. Ultimately I set Isaac up with books, to read to himself! I gave him a couple baby books from his youth that had just one word per page. He took to the project really delightedly, and indeed shooed me out of the room. "Mom– I'm reading by myself now!" he explained. A few minutes later he came in with a hard one: bend. Yes– you can see with the mirror images of b and d why this would be hard. I told him and then he went away again for a long time.
I think it's connected with this that this morning, for the first time in ages, he was loath to say goodbye to me at school. I was lingering there because I was meeting another mom for coffee. So Isaac kept peeking back out the door at me, "Mommy! Where are you going?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm just going to do some errands and stuff." I said. He didn't seem too happy with this.
"I'm afraid for you," he said. I came back and gave him a hug.
I said, "You mean– you're afraid that something will happen to me, or you're afraid to be here at school by yourself?"
He said, "I'm afraid something will happen to you." I reassured him that I would be fine, and back to get him soon and so on. He seemed okay and then again, just as I was leaving, came running out of class and jumped into my arms.
"I just need one more hug!" he said.
I don't know– this could be part of the Uncle Will fall-out, fear that I might die suddenly too, that anyone could. Or it could be reading, the PLUNGE into this new huge phase of his life. Or both, maybe. I've read that these developmental leaps can take a strange toll on kids. Maybe it's part of why he's been acting like a crazy man for the last six months. Or the baby, too. Good lord. Isaac has had a lot to cope with lately.
The other day we went to his piano lesson having not practiced at all in the previous ten days. The teacher asked him to play material that he had seen once, at their last lesson. He played it– perfectly. The teacher said, "Wow! Good job! You must have been practicing a lot!" I can tell you that on the one hand I was proud of him– proud that he did well, proud that for once he could sit still for a moment and show his abilities. But on the other hand, my heart sank. Oh great, I thought, he's going to be one of these kids who breezes through everything without working at all. This is a whole different problem and challenge.
The challenge is, how to get him to actually WORK and TRY at something that's difficult. I can already see that he will give up if he doesn't get something instantly. (Except skating, which he seems very concerned to learn no matter what.) It's such a fine line, because I don't want to ride his ass constantly and seem like no matter what he does I'm never going to be happy with him. But on the other hand I know personally the trap of getting good grades with minimal effort. (Hello, Colin?) It creates mental stagnation, laziness and arrogance. Also, what if you are really smart AND work, rather than just being really smart and sitting around making everything look easy? What could you accomplish?
Well, this will be something to think about and work on his whole upbringing. But in the meantime, he's four and a half and a reading master! I'm really excited for him, because reading on his own is going to give him so much freedom.
In other news, the baby is eating solid foods! What a splendid fellow. He has had the 90% breast milk, 10% rice cereal sort of meal each day for over a week, and now he's tried applesauce and bananas also. He loves eating! He's crazy about eating. He's such a little chunky, roly-poly little butterball. He sits on the table in his little Bumpo chair like a centerpiece and I shovel food into his adorable toothless little pie hole.
He's working on the teeth, too, gnawing on everything and seemingly every third night having a horrible time with pain management. Monday night here was awful– we were up for hours. I gave him Orajel and Tylenol and wet this and cold that and nursed and nursed and so on and so forth, but he was just miserable, fitful, crying, kicking his little feet and flailing his little fat hands. We both got about three hours sleep (meanwhile Isaac slept beautifully– if only they would do it at the same time!) and then it was time to get up for school. Arg. Staggering forth yet again. It's just brutal sometimes. But … so it goes in mamaland.
It's nice when there's some sense of progress– the reading thing has been simmering for so long, and now the pay-off is wonderful. The eating is bittersweet– my baby is growing up so quickly!! It's all a blur.