Kelli Diane

Not unlike the story about the fisherman who caught a fish “this big”, who after a week had caught the same fish “THIS BIG”, motherhood has a way of blurring memories about our young geniuses. It’s always our intention to note our children’s accomplishments without bragging too much, and yet somehow so much is lost in translation. They’re our children and they’re the most brilliant, most adorable, most everything…though I’m not sure why everyone else can’t see it.

Years ago my mother-in-law told me stories about Christopher reading at the age of three. I smiled and nodded, quickly figuring that he must have been very close to four, or that she had somehow forgotten the details of her son’s early years. Certainly no child really reads at three-years-old. Children are doing well to know their letters by the age of three, the sounds by the age of four and ahead of the game to be putting them together when they begin elementary school. At least that’s what my undergraduate texts had outlined as normal development. I never thought that perhaps Christopher’s mother was actually correct, until her grandson started “reading” this summer. Boy do I owe her an apology.

Dillon’s always been fascinated by numbers and letters, it’s just his thing. At just over eighteen months he started in with some of his letters and numbers, quickly learning the sounds and symbols. By two, while some kids would spend hours at the art table, Dillon quietly played with the calculator buttons. His idea of drawing meant that we sat at the table with him and wrote out whatever letter he wanted us to. We’d play the game for hours. It was exhausting.

Sometime in the summer he started asking about how things were spelled. We’d read signs all over; parking signs, open/closed signs, street signs, business names. He’d repeat all the letters in a word and turn to me, “Mommy, what does that spell?” Before long, he’d memorized combinations of letters and remember the word. Chris and I were hesitant to call it reading, fully aware that he has an incredible memory and was simply regurgitating previously learned words. That is until, one day a few months ago he spelled a word by using the sounds of the letters. We were floored. However remedial, he was reading.

Only a few days shy of his third birthday, he’s reading things all over the place now. Often needing help with a few sounds, but for the most part he’s finding his way through simple words. And only very recently, he’s taken up drawing. Which is to say that no longer does he require us to sit with him and write letters…he writes them himself. The boy who would never sit down to paint, will paint and color and draw, so long as it’s letters and numbers and words.

It’s an incredible experience to sit back and see the world through a child’s eyes, to watch them make the simple connections that we take for granted each day. But while finishing up a class last week, I grabbed the sign-in sheet and noticed that tucked between all the other mother’s signatures on its own line were the letters “D i L L o N”, and I realized how lucky I am to have such a great seat for the best show of my life.