I can read myself.

It is just amazing to see Alex take one step closer to reading — he is really trying to read. It takes two forms — he will either just pick up a book and tell himself the story, with or without an audience, or try to say the words along with me while I read. There are a few books — Old Hat, New Hat; The Very Hungry Catepillar; Moo, Baa, La La La; Go Dog Go!; and Chicka Chika ABC – that he is very close to being able to “read” to himself with the real words and everything. Old Hat, New Hat is the closest. If he is in my lap, I can just point to the pix and he knows the words that match up with about 85% percent of them.

But it’s almost more fun to hear him read to himself. Even when he isn’t tracking the exact words of the books, he mimics the kinds of questions I ask him when we are reading, and tells the story in his own words. Last night was one of my favorites. He picked up a book we’ve been reading a lot of, Waiting for Baby, and when he got to the last page, he looked at the picture of the big brother and Daddy visiting Mommy and baby in the hospital and pointed to each, saying “Mommy, Daddy, Baby, Alex!” Particularly cute considering the boy in the book is named Sam, not Alex. But he certainly gets the parallels. He also really likes the page where the little boy marches around playing his drum saying “Rum Tum Tum, Baby Come!” and he did that page almost perfectly, and has also been seen walking around the house himself chanting that.

Did I mention he melts my heart on a daily basis?