Taking Inventory

The other night, my boy in the middle made a list of words the baby can say. We were still sitting at the table after eating dinner, and he grabbed a notebook from the drawer to write them all down. With everyone's help, the list grew to thirty, including our names and a lot of nouns (ball, balloon, waffle, bird). His first sentence is a question: "Is this trash?" he asks many times a day, especially when I'm doing laundry and he zeroes in a bits of lint that filter from the pile. I say, "Yes, it's trash," to which he responds by promptly finding the waste basket to dispose of it. He's also polite, when we give him food and give him kisses, when he says, "Thank you."

Back in June, I posted First Words when the little one learned to say "ball".  Even since our after-dinner record, the list has about twenty additions, some inspired by us as we point out details of our surroundings, "I see the moon." He replies, "Moo-?" His new words are also inspired by books, which is why he can say "Oscar" from the Sesame Street book or "duck" and "frog". Tonight at bedtime, he said "shell" and "turtle". Without books, it could be a long time before he realized that such things even existed on this planet. You don't have to be a baby to get benefits like that. It's also worth mentioning that as I read, he manages to fill in his own story, "words" that only he truly understands, but that he enjoys babbling as much as he enjoys listening the the words I read.

My students have been very busy as they write memoirs, learn new comma rules, and sharpen proofreading skills. We've been highlighting posts from Slicers of Life each day, too. But what I haven't made time for, lately, is reading for pleasure--time to read about people, things, and ideas that they'll never know about without picking up a book. Tomorrow, I plan to let my writers read.