William-man

So, William's newest phrase is "I can do it all by myself, Mommy. I'm a FOUR-year-old!" He's even gone so far as to tell me that when he was a three-year-old, he still needed help, but four-year-olds are big kids. It's never that he's four, or that he's four years old, he's always "a FOUR-year-old" and you can hear the all-caps in the title. This extends from brushing his teeth to washing his hands, as well as to things like climbing the rock wall at the park & swinging on the swings by himself. The main thing that he now wants to do as "a FOUR-year-old" is to read all by himself to me & Daniel. This has led into his finally being interested in sounding words out phonetically. The other day, we pulled up at Lowe's, and he looked up at the big sign & asked me what "llll" ("l" sound), "ah" (short "o" sound), "wuh" ("w" sound), "eh" (you get the picture!), "sss", spelled. Well, yesterday, he managed to put all the sounds together himself & officially sounded out his first word with no help from Mommy AT ALL!! And, do you think he went for "cat" or "dog"???? Oh, no! In true, William fashion, the first word he officially sounded out by himself was "tender". As in train tender. See--it's all him, not only in the fact that it's not the easiest of words, but it's sooo appropriate to his tastes & interests. He turned over James' tender (red train from the Thomas series) and first sounded out James phonetically & couldn't quite put it together, then I heard "tuh", "eh", "en", "duh", "eh", "errrr". "ten", "duh", "er". "tender". Mommy, this spells "tender"!!!!! He was SOOOO excited & I was pretty darn surprised that he did it all by himself. Guess it's time to buy some early reader books.

And, then today, he's outside playing with his friend, Stephen while Stephen's mommy is at a doctor's appointment. I look outside & he's sitting on the swing actually pumping in rhythm & the swing is pretty high off the ground! I may be able to avoid hours of pushing him on the swings at the park this spring. Now, if I could just convince Daniel that he's a "FOUR-year-old", too..........