Professor Quigley showed me how.

When Jeremy's mom and dad came to see us a couple of weeks ago, Tammy asked what toys she could get for the kids. I told her that Jack has REALLY been into the alphabet and remembering how to spell words, so any toy that involved spelling words would be great. She found the perfect things: this and this. She got one of those for Evie, but I can't remember which, and neither can Jack. Nowadays my house is covered with these letters ALL day long. I clean them up a few times a day, and then wonder why I did that. Today, after weeks of this craziness, I finally just put all the letters up on the mantle and told Jack he could play with them tomorrow. He went into the kitchen and started playing with the letters on the fridge. I tell you, he is obsessed. This morning, I was on the couch feeding Charlie. Jack wakes up and walks into the living room and I'm thinking "I know just what he's about to do." He says "Good morning, Mommy", sits in front of the couch, opens the drawer of the ottoman, opens the drawer where all of his letters are and says "I'm going to spell a word."

In the past, I have been completely amazed by Jack's insane memory and his attention to detail even at an early age. In fact, I'm a little ashamed because his memory is so much better than mine. When he was a little over three he had been asking me to "draw" a bunch of words and he would just watch me form the letters. He started writing the letter "H" and "A" on his own, but that's all I knew he knew how to do-- until one day, he was sitting in his room coloring. He came to me and said "Mommy, I drew Halliburton." I went in his room really not knowing what to expect. When I saw what he "drew", I was dumbfounded. He had written the letters H-A-L-L-I. I had never even told him how to spell the word Halliburton, he only knew that much from having seen it on Jeremy's work truck and his coveralls.

Basically Jack learned how to write all of his letters (upper case and lower case) on his own, from just having seen us write. Recently I realized that he can spell about 30-35 words from memory and even more recently I realized that he knows how to read basic three letter words, and he's not even four yet. He blows my mind, and that's the point of this blog. I didn't write it to brag on my son, although I am, of course, very proud of him. I wrote this because he's crazy smart and it baffles me and I thought it might baffle you too. That's all.

Sleepy-head, spaghetti-face.

(And speaking of sleepy bears...)