A few months ago Owen became fascinated by printed words and letters. Given his name, perhaps it's no surprise that his favorite letter is O. On the wall of his room are a few things that say "Owen," and we sometimes point out the letters to him and explain that they are a way of saying "your name, Owen." So he started pointing out the letter O everywhere he saw it. We spent most of the summer saying, "yes, that's an O," when he'd stop to point it out on the pages of books, street signs, and manhole covers. He's pretty good with W's and E's, too. Next he became fascinated with the word "Exit" because there's an Exit sign by the window that they use to access the playground at school. And he now spends nearly as much time pointing at the words in his books as he does at the pictures, wanting to be told what they are (and wanting us to
pull them off the page for him).
As is often the case in parenthood, our efforts to teach him about his name had unexpected consequences - triggering a love of letters, but not much understanding about his name. He clearly recognized it, but he had never said it. Then yesterday we asked him who was in the mirror, and he said, "Owen!" So we asked him, "What's your name?" and he said, "Owen!" with a big smile. It sounds like a cross between "own" and "Owen," and it makes us all smile to hear it. There's something really satisfying about watching him develop a sense of self.
