Mommy, How do you spell . . .

The twins have catapulted into the "emergent stage" of writing (in the lexicon of Words Their Way). This means that they know all their letters, the sounds they make, and how to write them.

I've been getting longer and longer missives from Ben this week. They say "YT A B YAT MN" and that means "Me, Ben, and Mommy." (The boys are a little more willing to use pronouns now, but still feel compelled to remind everyone they're speaking to of their correct name since dangnabbit the rest of the world can't be counted on to know a Ben or a Milo when they see one.) When they draw a picture or write a letter, they can write their own names on it -- though Milo still needs the whole thing spelled out for him. Ben is 50/50. Sometimes he'll write it out, sometimes he'll write a string of three letters and say that means Ben.

The boys were drawing pictures today and Milo wrote his name. Then he wrote another three letters and said, "I wrote grandpa!!" He was incredibly proud.

I am, too. I am blown away. They see "letters" everywhere and they have to sound them ALL out. I am surrounded by "b b b b ah ah ah ah yuh yuh yuh" (Bay, if you don't know anything about long vowels or the "ay" sound or even that y makes at whole host of different sounds.)

Now if only we could go a whole week without a daytime potty accident. They're both into holding it WAY too long. I don't want to admit how many times a day I have to say, "STOP DANCING AND GO PEE!!!"

I want to say to them, "Hon, going pee is SO much easier than reading and writing. WHAT is the deal?" But then again, I don't want to screw up the reading and writing. Maybe once they get throught this literacy spurt they'll polish up the potty skills.