Who you are at 2 and a 1/2

Dear Jonathan,

It's true, you are my sunshine, my silly and sweet boy. You laugh at Mom's jokes and certainly like to tease me back. When we drive to Costco, I ask you what the giant "AMOCO" sign says. You grin and say "Garbage Trucks!"

You are still definitely obsessed with all things garbage: trucks, trash, etc. We have to tell stories to you about them and watch endless videos of garbage trucks on YouTube. Thanks to this, we now all know that they play music from garbage trucks in Taiwan to let people know they can bring their trash. So when you hear an ice cream truck driving by you say: "Taiwanese Garbage Truck!" and are disappointed when it's only ice cream.

I adore your desire to learn and experience language. The other day you exclaimed to me: "I like words!" That did my English-major-heart good. You like reading everything. At the bank you stopped me to ask what the signs said: "Please Enter Here." Today so far we've read the clock's instructions for proper hanging three times. We picked out words you knew and ones you wanted to learn on the remote control. You know well: EXIT, LAST, OK, On/Off, POWER, STOP, TV, and PLAY. In general we also have to read the microwave and dishwasher often. You think it's fun, and you have a strong memory. Other words and/or phrases you recognize from reading stories and in various contexts (mostly to do with garbage trucks): zoo, cat, dog, Mom, Dad, Jonathan, toy/s, bakery, mall, fruit, Allied Waste Services, Waste Management, trash, no yard waste, yard waste only, Heil, Tonka, USA, fox, hot, start, finish, the end, recycling, landfill, go, caution, danger, warning, water, one way, Wastequip, Aspen, beware, playground, hi, bus, car, and cookie. Now we're continuing to work on learning the sounds of letters. So far we've played with A,B,C,D,P, and S. I've learned something about you from when you first told me the letter "O" (which you learned by yourself), and that is to never underestimate you. So we just have fun with learning words and sounds wherever we go and hopefully it will help you have the confidence to keep going on your own. What matters most is that you're curious and want to know what words mean.

The other thing we do a lot is talk about what is part of "nature" and what is "man-made." You find this classification great fun on walks. The tree is nature; the fence is man-made, etc.

You love, love, love you some doggies. This is you with Claude-- from the day we painted shirts with mud as part of the community program with other kids this summer. You didn't really care much at the time about the other kids there or the mud, just Claude. You've now named the dog on Super Why after Claude. And just Sunday night we met another neighborhood dog, so now your pull puppy is Cutter. Yesterday we had to take Cutter with us on a walk to the bank. You pulled him along all the way down our street, then you both rode in the stroller. You fell asleep on the way home holding him. We're really going to have to get you a dog someday.

I love you Jonathan.