Wow. The past few days have been so busy around here. Nathan has been a bit of a pill with his tantrums and not minding lately— but as I suspected, he’s hit a few more milestones.
Take last night, for example. Part of his bedtime routine includes me singing to him before we say our prayers. When I finished singing, I started reciting The Lord’s Prayer (which he loves… When I’m reciting it, I’ll pause and Nathan will say the next word) when all of a sudden, Nathan started flapping around in my lap like some sort of fish being electrocuted.
“What’s wrong, Nathan?” I asked, perplexed.
“I MAD AT YOU!” he replied. Wow. He’s never articulated his feelings to me before.
“Ok. Are you mad at me because you wanted more songs?”
“Yes,” he said sullenly.
“I understand. I really do. You’re allowed to be mad at me all you want, but throwing a tantrum when you’re mad is unacceptable. We’re done singing. Now it’s time to pray and then bed. Are you now ready to say our prayers so you can go night night?”
“Okay. Yes,” he whispered.
And that’s not the only new development. Yesterday, my mom took us to look for Christmas gifts. We didn’t get home until around 3:30 or so. I anticipated taking Nathan directly to bed to nap but needed to change his diaper first. Nathan balked at the prospect and started saying “NO! Go pee pee in the potty!” I replied that it was nap time and we could try when he got up. When I went to change his diaper, I was surprised to discover his diaper was completely dry. So I ushered him into the bathroom, sat him on his potty, and LO-AND-BEHOLD he peed!!
That was the first time he’d ever told me he needed to go potty… and then actually went! He was so proud of himself that he jumped up from the potty and did a little dance. And I was right there dancing with him!
He’s also starting to really take off with his reading. He has most of his books memorized, so oftentimes I’ll have him “read” to me. The other night, he sat in my lap and read The Little Red Caboose to me. Paul peeked through the door and watched us as Nathan relayed the adventures to me. As he was watching, he noticed that when Nathan hesitated, his eyes would scan the page looking for a cue. Although technically Nathan doesn’t know how to read yet, he recognizes a lot of words, but that was the first time Nathan’s ever scanned a page to remember what word or sentence comes next.
My mom said I was the same way. I also started recognizing words and “reading” to my parents when I was really little. The funny thing is that I remember it (I don’t remember my age at the time, but Mom told me I was almost three). I remember my parents being so shocked and proud of me for reading… but I felt incredibly guilty because I knew I wasn’t actually reading. I didn’t know how. I just recognized a ton of words.
Of course, in retrospect, I see that recognizing words is one of the first steps to learning how to read. Nathan has an incredible memory, so I’m not surprised that he’s memorized a lot of words and knows what the word looks like when spelled. I’m super excited to nourish his love for reading so can hopefully continue to love books through adulthood.
My baby is growing up. And it’s happening alarmingly fast.
