I think my kids are pretty awesome.  I think they’re beautiful and brilliant and super sweet (most of the time).  I am routinely impressed and amazed by cool new things that they learn or wonderful things they do.  I think it’s pretty normal that I’m so thrilled by them — I’m their mom, and therefore, their biggest cheerleader.

Today is no exception — today B read a word.

He’s been able to recognize his name for a long time, and he can read most letters (and all the numbers) almost all of the time (sometimes “D” comes out as “T” and “Q” ends up being all manner of things).  But, other than his name, and Liam’s name, he’s never looked at a word and been able to figure out what it was, other than simply deciphering the individual letters.

Today, when Jo & I were talking, I was spelling something (my usual form of subterfuge) and B said, “I want a T-O-1!”  (Not a typo, he actually said, “I want a tee-oh-one!”)  I asked if he meant T-O-Y (which is a word we spell around them a lot, and it’s a lot shorter than C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T-E or I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M so he learned to recognize it a while ago) and he said that it was.  And, then, I realized that if he can spell the word, and he can read the letters, does that mean he can recognize the word?

So, I ran over to the chalkboard and wrote down TOY and asked him what it said, and he read, “T-O-Y . . .toy!”

And, there we go.  The first word of many.  (How cool is that?!?  Next up: the entire Harry Potter series.)