S is for Sasha

The Silver Surfer has become fascinated with letters and words and always wants to know, What does this say? What does that say?  (Pardon me?  You thought he was the Green Lantern?  Please, that was SO Monday.  For a kid who wouldn't remember to eat if he wasn't reminded, he has a surprising capacity to remember a pantheon of superheroes.)  He's been identifying letters everywhere he sees them. I love that he's excited about it and wants to learn about words.

Of course, he's most familiar with the letters in his own name.  But whenever he comes across a lowercase typewritten "a" instead of the preschool-familiar handwritten "a," he calls it six.  I never thought about it, but they are almost mirror images of each other.  The same with a capital J and the lowercase t.  Intrigued, and wanting to help him learn, I downloaded an app for my phone that lets kids practice writing a letter over the one displayed on the screen.  He loved it for 5 seconds until he thought it was way better just to make a huge messy scribble on the screen and squeal with laughter at his mischief.  Just as funny the 30th time as the first time.

This morning he was reading the back of my t-shirt and asked Mama, "What does that say?"
"It says American College of Nurse Midwives."
"What's a mitwice?"
"A midwife is someone who helps a baby be born.  Like when I was pregnant with you inside me, Mamu and I had a midwife to help us when you were born."
"Oh.  Yeah, and when you were a baby inside me, Mamu and I had a mitwice, too."

I was reminded me of another recent conversation that tipped off his lack of comprehension to comic effect.  Occasionally Nerdy and I will tell him a story about "when I was a little girl..."  One day Sasha and I were in a fancy kitchen store and he pointed to a funky utensil and told me, "When I was a little girl, I had one of these."  "Oh, really?" I asked.  "Yes," he answered as his attention was drawn to another interesting dish, "and when I was two little girls, I played with one of these."  "Oh, really? When you were two little girls, huh?"  "Yes," he responded again, and again shifted his attention to something shiny, "and when I was three little girls, I had one of these things." "Wow.  And now that you're a big boy, do you want to quit shopping and go outside?"  "Yeah."

And what's the deal about being a big boy?  I always thought people who used that term for their kid were making a big deal about something that really wasn't.  Are you a big boy if you can use the potty, or are you just toilet-trained?  Are you a big boy if you can sleep in a bed, or are you just sleeping in a different bed than before?  Well, you can file that in the What You Thought You Knew Until You Became A Parent file.  Sasha is so invested in the big boy appellation that he will actually get mad and correct me if I dare to call him "my little boy" or "one of the little kids."  He absolutely loves being Big.  It's like he graduated to a higher plane of consciousness at 2 and a half years old.  So don't mess!  He is now big.  B-I-G.