Friday, August 28, 2009

I-A-N. Ian!

There are some milestones in your child's life that you just know will be exciting. Like, the first time they smile or crawl or walk or talk. But last week we had one that I didn't expect (perhaps because I never thought about it): Ian wrote his name for the first time! And, it was actually legible! Okay, well, it was mostly legible.

It happened while we were out to dinner one night. He was drawing "pictures" with crayons. Jeff and I were talking and he said something like, "Look, I wrote my name!" Of course, my first thought was, "Right, of course you did..." Then, I looked over and he really did! We asked him to show us, and with full concentration, he did it again. The I and A were quite decent, while it was clear the N was a little more difficult. More like a sideways S, really. And, it was backwards. But hey, it's a start!

The ironic thing about this was that a couple of weeks earlier I was reading online that it's not uncommon for kids around his age to start writing their names. I was quite taken back to see this because I didn't sense he was close to being able to form letters on his own. I even went as far as asking his teacher about it a few days later and her response was that he was not old enough yet to be concerned about whether or not he could write his name. Her suggestion was to continue doing a lot of reading and to encourage him to draw, and that the letters would come eventually. Okie dokie.

And then not long after that, we had our little milestone! I don't know what it is, but there seems to be something particularly neat about seeing him learning to actually write and form words on his own. He's also generally starting to show a lot of curiosity with words - saying the letters and asking what word it spells. For example, he did this with the Jif peanut butter jar this morning - pointed out the J-I-F and asked what it spelled, and then, what that meant. Oh, and on a somewhat related note, we are also suddenly being asked what the name of every song is on the radio. Yesterday, I had to say, "Well, this song is called Bad Girls by Donna Summer," which seemed potentially inappropriate. It didn't seem to phase him, though. He just said, "Oh," and kept right on playing his air drums (another new trend) in the back seat.

Anyway, back to that whole name writing thing...we were quite the proud parents that evening, I must say. Here's some evidence:
Until I write again.

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