Earthmovers and Sandcastles

I made a baked pumpkin today (so yummy!), and I had to search through my old journal archives to find the recipe. Doing that, I came across a toddler Sam, telling me out of the blue that “‘a’ is for airplane, and ‘c’ is for cat.” I remember how amazed I was by that, reveling in the novelty that is an eldest child’s mental development. It’s the unfortunate lot of a second child, often, to not be able to amaze his parents in quite the same jaw-dropping way as those who went before him, yet I still marvel at Gabe’s growing abilities - and, even more, at his determination. Sam always took his skills casually, just as a matter of course, as natural as his hair growing. Gabe is focused.

We spent a good portion of today over at Starfall, where Gabe at first enjoyed the letter identification exercises but quickly found that he liked the matching games best. He then moved on to the higher level matching games, which involved matching short words to their pictures. He can’t really read independently yet, but he was doggedly trying. After a bit, I could see that he was getting tired of it, and he started to insist, “This is the last game! Then I’m done!” I told him that was fine, that nobody would make him play, and he muttered, “The computer will!” He couldn’t give up so long as the computer continued to challenge him. Eventually, I had to step in and declare him the winner over the computer.

This is a blessing of having two children with such very different personalities: even though we’ve gone through all this before, it’s still a new experience to watch this child learn. He’s coming up the hill from the other side from where Sam started, and while Sam wanders in zig-zags, examining bushes and animal tracks along the way, Gabe is clearing a wide and firmly-packed path, aiming for the crest like an arrow to a target. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out the farther both of them get along the way.

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