The Moments - Chapter 7: Sign, Sign, Everywhere A Sign

                Just as I am constantly amazed by the random prompts of my son’s verbal output, I am equally fascinated to watch and hear Joey interpret something he sees in the moment.  Written words and signs often provide examples of this – sometimes hilarious ones.  At 2 years old, he recognizes letters and numbers very well.  He also visually recognizes certain words like a pro, primarily his name and certain words associated with his favorite books and movies.  In some cases, it’s impossible to know if Joey is seeing a word that he knows by having heard it and, perhaps, linking the letters that he knows and notices rather than simply recognizing the word or words as part of a picture with which he is very familiar. 

The “connection to surroundings” theory clearly emerged a few weeks ago and created a very funny (to me) pattern that has apparently stuck out in Joey’s mind.  Before Joey and I head out for the day sometimes, he gets a kick out of walking me to the garbage dumpster to discard our trash.  (Weird, I know. But, it’s the little things that make the father-son bond fun and unique.)  When I toss a garbage bag in, he always yells “Bye, bye, garbage!”  One day, during the week before Easter, Joey made a fun discovery on the way back to our apartment door.  The designated handicapped parking space nearest our apartment has a standing sign across from it in addition to being painted on the asphalt as such.  After getting rid of our trash, Joey and I walked by the sign.  Joey stopped and pointed at the sign, which simply says “Reserved Parking” and has the standard handicap access symbol below the words.  After a second or two of looking at the sign and pointing at it, Joey said, “It says ‘Daddy’s House.’”  Wow!  Our apartment building has a placard now.  I was honored.  Funny as it was in the moment, it was also a moment of seeing Joey as thinking our home is special enough to get its own sign (even though he knows that other people live in the other apartments).  Of course, I giggled a little.  In response, I said, “Yeah, it says something like that.”  Assuming this was a one-time occurrence, I was surprised and amused the week before Mother’s Day when he declared it again.  Before we walked outside that Thursday morning, Joey and I had been signing Mother’s Day cards.  Before signing each one, I read the card to him.  (A good businessman, like Joey Grimes, never signs something before reading it.)  Outside, when Joey again approached the handicapped parking sign, he poked it and said, “It says ‘Love, Daddy’s House.’”  Maybe we’re a yard-sign greeting card now.  Just for fun, a week later, I walked by the now-special sign and asked Joey, “What does that say, son?”  He proudly declared, “Daddy’s House.”  Hooked on Phonics worked for us!

Speaking of Mother’s Day… Joey provided a moment of comedy by way of one of our gifts to my mother a couple days ago.  This weekend, we enjoyed our belated Mother’s Day weekend with my Mama and Grandmama.  Though their cards had been sent a week earlier and some of their gifts had already been received, Joey and I travelled with the final gifts from him to his grandmother (Mama Tee) on Friday night.  We had framed photos of the letters of my name to go along with a similar set-up of Joey’s name (to later be accompanied by my brother’s name in a frame for a complete set).  After arriving at my parents’ house on Friday evening, we unveiled the frame.  Mama took a look at it and then held the frame in front of Joey.  She asked him to name each letter, which he did, C-H-U-C-K.  Mama cheered for Joey for knowing the letters and then asked him to tell her what he had just spelled.  With incredible confidence, he shouted “Mama Tee!”  Mama corrected him and we got a laugh out of it.  Ok, maybe spelling and reading don’t have to be done together.  Then again, maybe everything spells “Mama Tee” or “Daddy J” when he is at Mama Tee and Daddy J’s house.  Just like every sign says “Daddy’s House” when Joey is at Daddy’s house.  For now, that works for me.

So, what did you see from all this writing?  Picture a sign that says “Thanks for reading about mine and Joey’s life.”  And that sign actually says “Thanks for reading about mine and Joey’s life.”