I went down to the basement this morning to get a clean shirt. As I was heading back up the stairs, I hear a loud, plaintive “KEV-IIiiiiin!!!” from the top of the stairs. I thought for a split second that Max had gotten stuck in the garbage disposal or something. But no, it was worse – much worse. My wife appeared at the top of the stairs, hands on hips, grim expression on her face and said, “Max stole my last caramel egg!!!” Relieved that he hadn’t done anything horrible or disfiguring, I snickered and made my way up the stairs. My toddler son was sitting in the armchair, smile on his now sticky, chocolatey face, half-eaten caramel egg in his hand. My wife glared, and then laughed, then in her frustration said, “Now I have to wait until next Easter to get more!!” Yes dear, you do. But wasn’t the look on his face totally worth it?
In other Max news, he’s reading and spelling now. Yes, he’s two and a half, and he keeps picking up new words and I’m not sure how. We encourage him, but definitely aren’t forcing him. He loves to count, practice his letters and numbers and read stories. He brought Jen a piece of paper this morning (don’t get me started on how much paper this kid goes through) and said, “This spells ‘no'” and sure enough, he had put “no” on his paper. For longer words, he knows all the letters, but when writing, they take a decidedly abstract, Paul Klee-ish look to them. He made a Mother’s Day card for Jen that said, “I love you Mommy”, but it ended up more like “I mo o lo mm v y u e”. The letters were all there, just in a new order.
There’s more going on with my favorite toddler, but I need to get back to work. Maybe I’ll get Jen to start posting here too… sweetie?
