Brought to you by the letter 'K'...Part Two

One of the first things Wendy did once Kiernan got into drawing was to start teaching him the letter K. He took to recognizing it right away, much to my amazement. We would be drawing with him, sitting at his little table, and we'd write the letter on his paper and he would proclaim, "K!" Eventually he started to point at himself when he identified the letter, because we were diligent in linking the letter to him, to his name.

After acquiring sidewalk chalk, he expanded his drawing to the cement of our driveway and patio. We began to expand the letters we were teaching him, linking each letter to a person he knows, or a couple of people he knows. After K, the next two letters were, obviously, D and M. D was an easy one for him to pick up, because three important people in his life have names that begin with that letter. His two godfathers--Darren and Daniel--and, of course, me. He picked up M in short order as well because somebody around here apparently goes by something that starts with M. Not sure who. Oh well, I'm sure it'll come to me.

Next letter was N, for his godmother Nee-Nee, and for my mom, who goes by Na-Na. Letters that are linked with the names of his other grandparents came after that. Then came C, because his babysitter's name is Cathryn.

At one point, early on in this process, Cathryn was playing with Kiernan. They were out on the patio, drawing on the cement with chalk. When out in the yard, Kiernan has a couple of activities that are basically his standbys now that the pots of dirt he used to play with are gone. He used to transfer dirt from one pot to another, and from the pots to his hair for hours. The conglomeration of pots was, at one time, a sort of feeble attempt at an herb garden on my part. Apparently if you want an herb garden to succeed you have to water the herbs in question. Who knew? After we got him a sand box--sand boat, actually--Wendy tossed all the dirt and refilled the pots with sand. This is better in that he gets less dirt in his hair and eyes and pants, but not so good in that he's getting fewer minerals in his diet.

Anyway, other activities have taken the place of his work with dirt. If he is not drawing with chalk, he is either blowing bubbles or carrying around one of his squirt bottles and spraying every surface in sight with water. I have a squirt bottle hanging off of the grille that I use for controlling flare-ups when I'm cooking. Actually, I should say I had a water bottle hanging off the grille. Kiernan absconded with it and made it his own. He loves to squirt water at people, of course, but his primary work involves, as I mentioned, just squirting things. All kinds of things. Chalk letters drawn on the ground. Chalk creatures drawn on the ground. The patio furniture. Every plant in sight. The bowls we use to feed the outdoor cats. The car tires. He carries the bottle in one hand, and works the spray trigger with the other hand, like he's playing an accordian or trying to make raspberry noises with his underarm. It is incredible how intent he gets on his task of getting everything wet. He takes his work very seriously.

He gets pretty intent about drawing with the chalk, too. What he generally does is go around with a couple pieces of sidewalk chalk, making marks on the ground. What I thought were indiscriminate marks. Often he calls out letters he wants me to draw. Or, if I am just writing down words and names on my own, he identifies the letters and calls out the names of the people he has come to link them with. Sometimes I'll draw sad approximations of animals and spaceships. For instance, outside my office is a picture of a space ship beaming up a unicorn. At least that's what it is to me. Others have said they thought it was a monkey dancing with a coconut. I've never been very good at drawing. However, I have learned to draw the pigeon from Mo Willems' excellent book Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, but, as alluded to in a previous post, that book deserves its own post.

When I draw something, or write a letter, Kiernan comes after me and marks where I have marked. He generally makes three little marks of his own.

On the day I mentioned above, the day he was out chalking up the world with Cathryn, I stepped out of my office to watch what they were up to for a few moments. He was going over something she had written, putting down his three little marks.

She turned to me and said, "I think he's trying to write the letter 'K'."

I was stunned. And pretty excited. I'm still not positive that she is right about this, but I'm pretty sure she is. It was a clever observation on her part. The more I watch him making his little marks, the more I'm convinced she is correct.

He can now identify most of the letters of the alphabet. I'm not sure what he thinks of this, or what he thinks they are. Some of them he cannot even really say, instead saying the name of the person or thing we have linked the letter to. H, for instance, is linked to his friend's mother, Heather. When he sees that letter he tries to say her name, and it comes out "Heya." [Note to my sister: we are trying to teach him your name too, he just cannot say Hope yet. But don't worry. And go easy on the kid. You still can't say the word "brother", for goodness sake. :)] He can't say the letter I, either, but he uses a hand sign Wendy taught him to convey that he identifies it. The hand sign she taught him is the sign for "ice cream". I knew I was smart to marry that girl.

When we are out in public nowadays, and Kiernan sees a letter featured prominently on a sign, he calls it out. He is still most enthusiastic about the letter K. One morning we were in a McDonalds (not our normal hangout, don't worry...I just had to take the car to the garage for service and that was a convenient place to meet). Wendy sat Kiernan down in his chair and he pointed and yelled out, "K!!!!" Wendy looked but did not see the letter K anywhere. He pointed again and proclaimed, "K!!!!" She looked again. The place was undergoing renovations, and one of the doors to the back area had yellow caution tape over it. The tape was basically in the form of a giant letter K.

I have to say, it's great fun teaching him all this stuff. It's also amazing to me the amount of things we have yet to teach him. Every day it gets a little clearer why people refer to toddlers as little sponges. He is just absorbing so much, at such an incredible rate.

I guess the only truly sad part of this is that I've had to give up cursing in the car when other drivers do something moronic, which, in Los Angeles, is every 2.73 seconds. I don't like to curse at other drivers, but it's the law here in California, so I comply. Not any longer though. Kiernan is just at that stage where he can pick up almost anything you say and send an approximation of it right back at you. I found this out when my friend Yuri called me on my cell one day. I answered the phone, "Yo! Yo! Yo!" From the backseat I immediately heard, "Yo! Yo! Yo!" So, no more cursing in the car. It hurts, giving that up, because it was one of those things Wendy really loved about me. I know she looks forward to the day he goes away to college, so that I can take that up again.

In the meantime, good thing I'm learning sign language.