Sometimes I worry about what I'm not doing for Sam, and whether I'm unknowingly stunting his growth in some way just by forgetting to do this or that. The other day, for example, I got one of those never ending, never ceasing automated parenting e-mails, the kind for which I signed up a hundred times when I was pregnant with Sam; you know, "This week your baby is the size of an eyelash," "This week your baby is the size of a nickel and has internal organs," This week your baby is the size of a silver dollar and has already begun to think of ways to blame you for not taking enough folic acid."

Anyway, this particular e-mail started out by suggesting that in Sam's physical development, he, among other skills, might be learning how to stand on one foot. I paused in my reading. Could he stand on one foot? It wasn't something I'd seen him do; it wasn't something I'd even considered trying to teach him.

"Sam, come here," I called to him. "Can you stand on one foot?"

He thought for a moment, then crossed the room, grabbed hold of my pants leg, and proudly lifted one foot in the air. Well, of course; neither I nor the e-mail had required that it be done unassisted.

Anyway, that's the sort of thing that worries me. Am I asking him about his shapes often enough? When I hear another little boy or girl talking about colors, I wonder whether he's getting enough information on the subject; after all, few of his toys are brown or grey, so we rarely even talk about those colors. We live our days relatively unencumbered by such things as flashcards or educational software packages; I don't much think about working on his academics until we run into another child whose parent has obviously had Stanford Preschool on the brain. Then - I worry.

Of course, it's nothing that keeps me awake at nights. Most of the time, I can remain rational and realize that Sam loves being read to and engaged in conversation, and for a two-year-old, that's plenty. He helps me cook, he does art projects, and we make lots and lots of music together. He's a well-rounded child in most ways. Still, I occasionally get the nagging thought in the back of my head that I'm forgetting something very important - missing a window, not preparing my child.

And then I have moments like today, when I was putting him into his carseat, and I sang his alphabet to him. "A, B, C, D, E, F..." I said as I buckled his belt.

"G!" He smiled at me around the head of Daisy-Doggie, his new stuffed best friend that Eric got for donating ten dollars to St. Jude's Children's Hospital.

I was surprised. He'd never shown me that he could do this before. Most of his forays into the Alphabet Song consisted of mostly R's, S's, and a few E's. I went on, "H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O..."

"P!"

"Q, R..." I tried not to let on that this was any huge deal.

"S!"

"T, U..."

"V!" He sang it as "Veeeeeeeeee," holding it out until he ran out of breath, with a giant grin. He knoew this was something special.

"W, X, Y..."

"Z!"

I kissed him on the cheek. "You're so smart," I told him, closed the door - and did a victory dance in the middle of the parking lot. He may not be ready for Stanford tomorrow, but he makes me proud.

(Of course, that was before he wrote all over the floor with chalk, dumped out and ate half a bottle of teething tablets before I caught him, and unrolled a bobbin of expensive thread all over the floor. Even in the height of toddler-induced frustration, though, I kept the glow of that moment. Times like those are what keep me sane.)