Needless to say, we’ve been a bit busy and haven’t had as much time as we used to for blogging purposes.  However, last week, Joel had another breakthrough at school we want to share.

First let me say, we have long suspected that Joel is knowledgeable about all 26 letters of the alphabet.  A couple of the only t.v. shows he will watch and enjoy are Sesame Street, SuperWhy and Sid the Science Kid.  (We really like PBS in our house.)  He has his own set of alphabet letters and when he plays with them, he holds them up and, while he doesn’t say the sound or the letter, you can “see” him thinking the sound or letter.  I know that sounds crazy, but he has this way of “emphasizing” the letter he is holding by either touching it or holding it a certain way.  I have no other way of explaining it.  You just have to see him when he does it.  Anyway.

He was at school on Thursday playing with a set of alphabet letters similar to the ones he has at home:

You can’t see the letters in this picture, but he’s moving them around.  This is what he spelled:

Keep in mind, he was not prompted to do this.  His teachers took a picture (obviously) and cheered him on.  They went to lunch and then about two hours later he was back to his letters where he made the word “stop” again.

According to his paraprofessional, he not only focused on this one word, he was also making the letter sounds as he touched them.  Also, he was really focused on the color red.  Interestingly, and I don’t really know if this means anything, she was wearing a red t-shirt that day.  While playing on the computer, he sought out the word “stop” there, too.

So, yeah.  We’re really excited about this.  Throw in him calling me Mama last weekend (and once again on Friday when Maya and I went to pick him up from school) and saying “Shoooe” while taking off his shoes, we are feeling very optimistic about this school year.