Two lessons for the price of one

Toby is working on his alphabet. I know he has had a keen interest in letters for some time and that it was “ABC’s” week at daycare 2 weeks ago, but I couldn’t tell you WHERE exactly his alphabet skills are at; a point that was driven home to me today while we were in the car on the way home from swimming.

Toby was snuggled up in Mia’s blanket when a sudden epiphany hit him. As it is with Toby, sudden epiphanies don’t happen quietly.

“MOMMY!!!!” he exclaimed with enough volume to deafen the 3 other passengers in the car, “This blanket has M-I-A on it! That spells MIA!!!!”

It would have been a discovery second only to walking on the moon had I not shattered its unique coincidence by pointing out that it had been done on purpose; it was, after all, Mia’s blanket.

You’ve got to love kids; even this deflating piece of evidence didn’t dampen his enthusiasm.

“Mommy - -how you do spell YOUR Name?”

Having had this conversation with him several times before, I knew to ask whether he wanted the spelling of the name Mommy or the name Alyssa. (Toby always loves to be given options.)

I first spelled Alyssa (he oohed and aahed – it’s VERY exotic in its spelling with TWO S’s and a Y in the middle…crazy…) and then Mommy.

The conversation picked up as I was then asked to spell Mama, Mom, Daddy, Dada, Dad and…Zak.

As you can probably imagine, I was only half engaged at this point in the toddler driven spelling bee but was caught off guard when I was suddenly corrected.

“What did you say, Toby?”

“I SAID, Mommy, that you FORGOT the C.”

(What had I been spelling? Oh, right…Zak)

I looked at Rob for help and he confirmed, “Yeah, he’s right. Zak is spelled Z-A-C-K.”

I guess it’s the first time (in the 4 months we’ve had him) that we had actually stopped to discuss HOW his name was spelled. Apparently, by spelling Zak without a C, I was dead wrong. Toby and Rob, who spell it with a C, are cleverly correct. As always.

In all the discussion that ensued about how you should or shouldn’t spell the name ZAK it never occurred to us until afterwards to marvel at the loud mouth troublemaker from the back seat and his brilliant alphabet analysis skills.

I wonder what ELSE he knows how to spell…