A New World Opening

"Look Daddy!"

He'd brought home a stack of artwork, all done that day at school. It'd been a rainy one, so I'm guessing the teachers were hustling to keep the kids busy. He was beaming over it, and wanted to show it to me, so we plopped down on the couch to go through it. The caterpillar made out of circles, the green diamond he had painted, the sheet of construction paper with various torn bits of paper glued all overit. And on each one, he directed my attention to the letters affixed to the top.

"Look Daddy, it's my name." Pointing to each letter, he sounded them out. "Aitch, eee, enn, are, why!"

I had forgotten this, the joy that comes when these straight and squiggly lines first start to make sense and coalesce into words, words that go along with the pictures on the page and fill in the story. And the happiness of being able to recognize your own name and put it down on paper.

"And Simie's name is ess, eye, uh, emm, oh, enn!"

His excitement was contagious. He's hungry for it, to have this power for his own, to be able to decipher the symbols and get at the stories that they're telling. As cornball as it sounds, I almost feel like I'm re-experiencing this happiness for myself.

While we're on the subject of our children's firsts, I'll have a post up tomorrow at DadCentric about another first, this one not quite so exciting, but entertaining nonetheless. Be sure to check it out. And in case you missed last week's post about my violent children, allow me to enlinken you.