A long time ago, my boys used to share their toys willingly and lovingly. These days it's a fight to the finish over a scrap of paper that no one wanted in the first place until suddenly someone did. Basically, if it can be fought over my kids are on it. They are probably fighting about something as you read this.
And yet.
And yet, sometimes there is a lull in the war where we lay down our arms and there is 10 minutes of peace and if you're not paying attention you just might miss it. I almost missed it yesterday when Nate got industrious with some magnet letters and spelled out his favorite phrase on our front door:
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| Nate was pretty excited to say the least. This was the least blurry photo I managed to take of him. |
To be fair (to me), Nate had a reasonably dramatic meltdown when he couldn't find a second "B" to complete the mission*. It wasn't epic, but distracting enough that between scrambling to find and wet a foam bath letter and stick it on the door so he could get on with things again and grabbing the camera to take a picture of the finished product I didn't notice how quiet the other one was being.
In case you didn't know this already, a quiet 3 year old is almost always up to something and rarely anything good. My heart sank a little until I walked around the corner and found this, complete with a makeshift "b", a work-around "T" and a substitute "W":
Really, it was very ingenious and I was suitably impressed over its merits but the part that truly blew me away was that this was executed without any fighting. Seth patiently constructed an entire alphabet without fuss even though he knew perfectly well where to find the missing letters. For whatever reason, he let his brother have this one.
The lion laid down with the lamb.
There was peace in the valley.
And I almost missed it.
Almost.
Or as my boys would say, "Almost – almost – but not quite"**.
- L.
PS. Don't worry, it didn't last long and things were back to business as usual in short order including this:
I couldn't get Seth to stand next to his masterpiece for love nor money, but Nate repeatedly switching the M and "W" back and forth got him out to the kitchen every time. This is his "not impressed" face by the way.
PPS. My boys are three, are curious about how things are spelled and have excellent recall. They aren't actually spelling, but they are good at putting letters together in the right order. They are just as likely to put together a random string of letters at this point and say "what does that spell?".
Still, some of their other efforts surprise even me:
"Won't be beat" probably takes the cake though. Nate really, really, really likes this one:
Or as my boys would say, "Almost – almost – but not quite"**.
- L.
PS. Don't worry, it didn't last long and things were back to business as usual in short order including this:
I couldn't get Seth to stand next to his masterpiece for love nor money, but Nate repeatedly switching the M and "W" back and forth got him out to the kitchen every time. This is his "not impressed" face by the way.
PPS. My boys are three, are curious about how things are spelled and have excellent recall. They aren't actually spelling, but they are good at putting letters together in the right order. They are just as likely to put together a random string of letters at this point and say "what does that spell?".
Still, some of their other efforts surprise even me:
"Won't be beat" probably takes the cake though. Nate really, really, really likes this one:
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| Won't be beat, indeed! |
• • • • • • •
*The missing apostrophe didn't sit well either. I was just relieved I didn't also have to explain why the magnet letters didn't include a "registered trademark" symbol (although there isn't much that's cuter than listening to a toddler say "that's a registered trademark" in a super-serious way).
*We are big fans of Keith Baker. This is an oft quoted line from No Two Alike – a highly recommended read for all children, but most especially for twins.
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