"Their Letters"

Owen and Eli can't write their full names but they can write what we call "Their Letters." Owen writes a perfect O and Eli is mastering the letter E. These letters are now associated with ownership. For example, Owen will draw a picture and then draw a nice big O on the page to show that it is his. Eli will do the same with his own letter. Yesterday, during church, Marcus wrote Eli's name in big letters on a piece of paper. You should have seen how excited it made Eli to see his name written so big and proud across the page. He was beaming.

I really had to chuckle a few days ago when the boys were being especially annoying due to a bad case of cabin fever (I hate you, January, with your negative degree temperatures). I pulled some empty diaper boxes out of the garage and gave them some markers and set them to work. The VERY first thing Owen did was cover his box in O's. Lots and lots of them of all sizes. He may as well have been writing, "This box is MY box! Nobody touches it except for ME!" Eli did the same thing but went a step further and asked me to write his full name on the box. We spoke each letter as I wrote them, "E- L- I" and then Owen asked me to write his name as well. "O-W-E-N." I may have laughed to myself, but that night when Marcus tried to climb into Owen's box, Owen screeched, "That's mine!" and when Marcus answered that no, it was not his, Owen got up and pointed to all of his letters and the place where I'd written his name in large purple letters.

Well, Marcus couldn't argue with that. He climbed right out.