Every Day in Lots of Ways

That's how these boys amaze me.

Graham? Sitting up. All by himself. And he loves it--I've seen more smiles from him in the past 2-3 weeks since he's been able to stay up by himself than I've seen in his entire previous six months combined. It's completely changed his world view--literally. His experience of sitting up wasn't quite as dramatic as Jack's. I didn't realize until Jack was six months old that he was capable of sitting up, but when we first tried it, he immediately sat. With Graham, I knew how much more fun a sitting baby can have/be, so we started propping him to sit several weeks ago and gradually pulled away the supports. So there's no exact time I can put on the "First Date Baby Sat Up" line in the baby book, but he definitely has the hang of it now.

Graham also seems to be getting his first tooth. I haven't had any official sightings of it yet, but I can feel a bump on the right side of his mouth, and we've had more than a few rough nights in the past few weeks, with lots of crying, gnawing, and drooling. All of which adds up to a likely tooth.

And Jack? Well, two things. Yesterday morning we were at a Bible study and Jack was playing in an adjoining room with two other little boys while the mommas talked God. One of the other boys was having a bit of a rough morning (sharing was hard for him and shoves were more plentiful that day), and Jack dealt with it soooooo well. A few of the snippets I overheard Jack saying:

Can I help you with that puzzle? Maybe I can put together the James pieces and you can do the Thomas ones. Would that be okay? [It was, of course, a Thomas train puzzle, though oddly enough we weren't the ones who brought it.]

Ouch--that hurts me. [when the other boy was tackling a little too hard. Note the lack of accusation. Just the statement of effect was enough to get him to back off. Makes me wonder if Jack's noticing and imitating Ben's and my conscious efforts to try to use statements instead of demands/accusations a la "How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk"]

It's okay. You did not break my train. It's supposed to be that way. You have been playing very gently with my trains. [the other boy thought he had broken a wheel on a train, but it really wasn't broken.]

[when the other boy was sitting on all the trains so that his two friends couldn't play with them]: Jack: Why don't we all play with trains together?

[when the other boy didn't respond to that after several tries] Jack to me: Momma, should we all get to play trains together?

Me: Yeah, that sounds like a great idea!

[other boy, hearing this and seeing that his mom was noticing, though hadn't had to say anything yet, started to get up]

Jack: Yeah, I think we should all have a train to play with.

And that was the only time any parent needed to get involved with their interaction. The rest of the time the boys solved issues by themselves. Everything Jack said was very judicious, with no blaming, no whining, no tattling. And yet it was also very assertive; he wasn't going to let anyone steamroll him. Preschool has given him great opportunities to use his emerging social skills. I'm constantly grateful for his fantastic teachers there and amazing to see him bloom into such a thoughtful, fair, kind little boy.

And the other thing that just floored me today was when Jack read a word I didn't know he knew. He's known how to read/spell Jack, Momma, Daddy, and, the, and maybe a few other words I'm not thinking of now for a while. When he was interested in letters last spring and had just learned all the letter names, I got some small foam letter stickers from a craft store and we used them to "write" words on paper by sounding them out and sticking them on. I didn't want to put too much pressure on Jack learning to read by himself at an early age, because he's got decades of reading ahead of him, and right now I'd much rather he learn the imaginary play, social interaction, and creative thinking skills that are already becoming important to getting along with a group of his peers--things that aren't taught directly in school. But he kept persisting in wanting to learn about letters, so whenever he showed interest, I talked about it.

So at noon today we were at the drive-through (teething nights leads to Momma outsourcing some of the cooking) when Jack pointed to a sign and said, "Momma that says 'dog.'" Surprised, I looked up, and sure enough, there was a sign that said "Dog Wash." No identifying pictures or symbols--just "Dog Wash." So I stammered, "You're right, Jack--it does say 'dog!'" Then asked how on earth he knew that. Jack responded, as matter-of-factly as if every 3 year old knew these things so surely every momma should, "It says D-O-G. Duh-AW-guh. Dog." My jaw dropped.