A Most Interesting Discovery
Sometimes you learn the most amazing things about your kids in the most unusual ways. I offer as an example the day last week that I was sitting with our son in the bathroom as he took care of business. (For some reason, he occasionally requests my presence near the potty when nature calls. I think it has to do with having my undivided attention. He knows I can find little else to do while sitting on the step stool as he sits on the throne.)
He was chatting me up from his perch, looking about the room for conversational inspiration, when he spied the plastic tub of flushable "kid wipes" on the shelf next to him. He stared for a second, and then he bemusedly announced, "Hey, that tub says 'Pop-Up' AND 'Pull-Up!'"
He was evidently puzzled by how it could be both simultaneously (with 'Pop-Up' a tub descriptor and 'Pull-Up' the brand name). I, on the other had, was dazzled by the fact that he KNEW it said both of those things. I had never told him so.
"Are you reading that, honey?" I asked.
"Yes," he said tentatively, wondering why I was asking.
Now it was my turn to look around the room in search of something else with which to verify his apparent new skill. But despite the stereotype of the water closet as "reading room," there wasn't any printed matter to be had. In desperation, my eyes lighted on a small bottle of liquid soap resting on the sink.
"Here," I said. "Can you read this?" I held out the bottle with my thumbnail beneath four words spelled out in all caps.
"Hand...and...body...wash," he said, looking to me for approval as soon as he'd finished.
"You're reading!" I said to him, smiling broadly.
I, of course, dove into this reading business head-first, constantly pausing as I read him and his younger sister books to let him noodle out the last word of a line. Sometimes I would urge him to try entire sentences. He quickly tired of this and would growl at me if I pushed him too hard. I was reminded of how I felt when I took differential equations in college. I was pleased with myself when I finally mastered something in that deeply mysterious class, but I wouldn't have wanted someone shoving problems at me all the live-long day so that I could prove myself again and again. So I backed off.
As it turns out, he pulls out this new skill whenever it can be used to his benefit. Last Friday, when we were warming ourselves in a park-and-rec building in preparation for a subzero hayride to see the Christmas lights in our neighborhood, I was trying to keep quiet the fact that Santa was seated in a nearby alcove doling out candy canes in exchange for Christmas lists. I didn't think we had time for the line prior to our 5:25 PM departure on the Frigid Express and figured we'd catch him afterward.
That was not to be the case. Our little guy was absent-mindedly looking around his environs when he saw five letters and an arrow taped to the top of a nearby stairwell.
"SANTA!" he said, heading off in the direction indicated.
And thus was lost another parental advantage. We'll have to be careful to spell only more challenging two-syllable words while he's within earshot.
He was chatting me up from his perch, looking about the room for conversational inspiration, when he spied the plastic tub of flushable "kid wipes" on the shelf next to him. He stared for a second, and then he bemusedly announced, "Hey, that tub says 'Pop-Up' AND 'Pull-Up!'"
He was evidently puzzled by how it could be both simultaneously (with 'Pop-Up' a tub descriptor and 'Pull-Up' the brand name). I, on the other had, was dazzled by the fact that he KNEW it said both of those things. I had never told him so.
"Are you reading that, honey?" I asked.
"Yes," he said tentatively, wondering why I was asking.
Now it was my turn to look around the room in search of something else with which to verify his apparent new skill. But despite the stereotype of the water closet as "reading room," there wasn't any printed matter to be had. In desperation, my eyes lighted on a small bottle of liquid soap resting on the sink.
"Here," I said. "Can you read this?" I held out the bottle with my thumbnail beneath four words spelled out in all caps.
"Hand...and...body...wash," he said, looking to me for approval as soon as he'd finished.
"You're reading!" I said to him, smiling broadly.
I, of course, dove into this reading business head-first, constantly pausing as I read him and his younger sister books to let him noodle out the last word of a line. Sometimes I would urge him to try entire sentences. He quickly tired of this and would growl at me if I pushed him too hard. I was reminded of how I felt when I took differential equations in college. I was pleased with myself when I finally mastered something in that deeply mysterious class, but I wouldn't have wanted someone shoving problems at me all the live-long day so that I could prove myself again and again. So I backed off.
As it turns out, he pulls out this new skill whenever it can be used to his benefit. Last Friday, when we were warming ourselves in a park-and-rec building in preparation for a subzero hayride to see the Christmas lights in our neighborhood, I was trying to keep quiet the fact that Santa was seated in a nearby alcove doling out candy canes in exchange for Christmas lists. I didn't think we had time for the line prior to our 5:25 PM departure on the Frigid Express and figured we'd catch him afterward.
That was not to be the case. Our little guy was absent-mindedly looking around his environs when he saw five letters and an arrow taped to the top of a nearby stairwell.
"SANTA!" he said, heading off in the direction indicated.
And thus was lost another parental advantage. We'll have to be careful to spell only more challenging two-syllable words while he's within earshot.
posted by Lisa Strandberg at 1:32 PM
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