I was getting dressed and tidying up in our room and he was
unusually quiet up in the salon. If you have a 3 year old boy you know, they are never quiet.
So I crept up expecting the worst (permanent marker on the walls, the
dog getting a haircut while he sleeps...) and there he is quietly at
the table with pen in hand.
Now this is the child who NEVER draws. At all. Anything. Crayons and
paper just don't do it for him. Except for making "hieroglyphics" in
marker on the walls (thank goodness we have a big plastic catamaran we
can bleach) I have never seen him make any marks on paper.
So I say, "hey Z what are you doing?"
I look and he has some dry erase cards that are supposed to be play
postcards for a play mailbox he has. He found the dry erase marker and
he was drawing on the cards. I bought the set because he really wanted
a mailbox. And we've never done anything further with the rest of the
contents. Each little "postcard" has a lower case and capital letter
on it and he was carefully tracing every letter of the alphabet on
these cards and then trying to write the letter himself in the blank
space next to it!!!!
I almost passed out! I have had unschoolers tell me he would just
magically one day become interested in things like hand writing and
math and do it on his own and I thought "yeah, right."
And here he was. My son who has never even drawn me a picture --
he BEAMED and said "Mommy I can write just like you do!"
And now he pulls out this set and "practices" his letter writing
practically every morning. On his own free will. Quietly.
Here's he funny kicker. I asked him one of those ridiculous grown up
questions when I first saw how well he was copying the letters... I
said "Wow, who taught you how to write like that honey?"
He said: "Thoth."
Hmmmmm. Mommy is stumped. Maybe it's a friend from somewhere I don't
remember. Hmmmm???
"Honey, who is Thoth?"
Zach sighs like he is forever trying to explain things to us silly
adults. "He's the Egyptian god of writing."
I googled it. He's right.
