Can too

I keep thinking I have William figured out. He likes delivery trucks, street sweepers, trains, and buses. He hates thin streams of running water and struggles with being interrupted. He's learning to read, but memorizes the shape of a word rather than trying to sound it out. He's learning to write at about the same pace.

Yesterday, though, he was trying to say something to me. I couldn't understand him, so I didn't respond. He tried again. I said, "what? Can you say it again, please?" He did, but I still didn't get it. He started to get frustrated. Usually, at this point he either gives up or finds some nonverbal way of pointing out a large enough clue. This time, he did something different.

He went to our art supplies drawers and pulled out paper and markers. He put them at his spot in front of his little booster chair, sat down and confidently wrote "E" and "A."

He paused, like he didn't know how to proceed.

"Do you need to eat more, William?" I asked, surprised. We'd just cleaned dinner off the table.

He didn't say anything, but proceeded to write "OQS."

What?

Nora said, "He's trying to write 'ears.'"

That's a game he plays, wherein he peeks in your ear, claims there's a mouse in it, squeaks, giggles, and then cuddles you while you tickle him.

So apparently, something upset him a little, and he was trying to calm himself by doing something he enjoyed, but we didn't get that, either.

And this is the first time that he couldn't express something verbally, but had the skills to attempt writing a message for me.

The only thing I could think to do was to snatch up the opportunity. I grabbed a stack of paper and said, "William, do you want to write words?"

He beamed at me. So I wrote two words per page for him to copy, words like "flower," "Mommy," "Daddy," "cat." He loved it and got progressively more excited. Then, the baby crawled under the table and grabbed my leg. I turned to pick him up. I cooed at him a bit and then turned back to William to check on him. He'd just finished writing something in the last bit of unmarked space at the bottom of his page.

"I can," it said.

He pointed to each word and read it aloud, his words trembling with excitement and his arms waving in the air as he said it because he could *not* contain himself. "I CAN!" he squealed.

I stared at it, stunned.

"Yeah, William!" I said, finally. "You sure can."

So we're framing that. It must be true that I need all the reminding I can get.