Spelling

She's precocious. Well, probably as precocious as other two and a half year olds whose parents love them.

She's playing with blocks. I've recently arrived home after work, and she wants to play with me. As I clean up the day's playing so that there is room to play some more, she decides that we'll play with blocks.

She moves her vacuum cleaner, snowman, laundry bag -- ok, that is the family's, and we have been looking for it for a while -- and a little dog out of the way so that she can pull the huge bin of wooden blocks out. Most of these blocks were made by her Uncle Mike, but some of them are blocks with letters.

We start by using the Uncle Mike blocks to build a tower. Well, she builds a tower. For some reason, any of the towers that I attempt to build make it about two blocks before they come crashing down, or, a hand makes them come crashing down, well she crashes them down. After she makes a tower with all of the blocks of a certain size, she decides to play with the littler blocks with letters on them.

I'm looking at Asher. Nowadays, you always have to look at Asher. If you're not looking at Asher, then he is probably launching himself off of the mat on which you have placed him, onto the wood laminate floors after some toy with which he shouldn't play. He is currently trying to slobber on one of the blocks that is just out of his reach. I roll him over so that he is in the middle of his mat. In an instant, he is on the other side of the mat attempting to put a half empty bag of diapers over his face. I put him back into the middle of the mat. Again, he is almost off of the mat and is attempting to shove some wires for a computer into his mouth. I roll him, one more time into the middle of the mat and turn to Tahlia.

In the three seconds that I was playing with Asher, Tahlia has taken out two blocks and placed them beside each other. There is an "A" and a "Y."

"Daddy? I need an 'M,'" she says to me.

"Why?"

"Because, I'm spelling Mya." She continues to dig through the blocks. She has done this before. It completely amazed us one time when we first were playing blocks with her about six months ago, and she suddenly spelled out Mya's name correctly. It was one of those nonchalant things she would do as if everyone could do it.

I start to help her, but before I can find an "M," she has it in her hand and carefully lays it beside the "Y." This should, of course, effectively spell "MYA," but, instead, it spells "AYM." I ask her what it says.

Starting at the "M" and moving backwards, she spells out "MYA." Then looks at me and smiles.

I try to help. I move the "M" and the "Y" so that it actually reads "MYA" and say, "This says Mya."

She moves all of the blocks around so that it spells "AMY" and then points randomly to the blocks and spells out "MYA."

"Actually Tahlia," I say, "that spells Amy. Do you know who Amy is? You remember Stella's Mommy. That is Amy."

She shuffles the blocks so that they spell out Mya and says, "AMY." I tell her that she has done a great job and turn back to Asher who is ferociously hanging onto the parrot that is hanging above him on his tummy time mat. He is attempting to devour the bird whole. Since he is occupied, I turn back to Tahlia.

She has taken out four blocks. She puts them side by side.

"Look Daddy," she begins to point at the farthest block to her right and moves her finger to the left. "'B','A', 'I', 'A'. That spells 'out'." She looks at me for confirmation. Of course I'm worried that she is dyslexic, not because the four blocks that she just "read" to me actually say "7" - "P" - upside down "V" - "8," nor because the last time I checked BAIA does not spell "out," but, because, she read it as if she was reading Hebrew or Arabic.

As I am impressed with her ability to spell, I call Mommy in. Mommy is on the phone with another friend who has a child who is Tahlia's age minus seven weeks. I hear Mommy say to her, "I have to go. Tahlia is spelling something right now, and I have to pay attention." Mommy heard her gasp, but little does our friend know what Tahlia is spelling.

"Tahlia," Mommy inquires, "What do you have there?"

Happy that she now has all of our attention, Tahlia shows Mommy what she spelled, "A-I-A-P," she says pointing at the same blocks that spell "out," I mean BAIA," It spells Ipp." Mommy looks at me and says, "Oh. That's wonderful.

Since it is now dinner time, we move to the table. Tahlia, however, isn't done spelling. She continues to spout out the different words that the 7 the P the V that is upside down and the 8 actually spell, her final one being "Ahhinp." Of course, we're all unclear on what Ahhinp means, but at least she knows how to spell it.

I decide to err on the side of precocious -- I'm going to decide she isn't dyslexic, because, after all, I don't know much about Hebrew or Arabic, and who am I to say she doesn't.