Three and 1/2 Man

Dear Max,

I love your imagination! Goggle boy's adventures in the bathtub, construction stories about building and destroying, fighting fires, and inventing explanations and reasons for all the things that you just have to do...usually beginning with"I'll tell you what, Mommy...." I love the way the world looks through your eyes!

After watching the "The Letter Factory" dvd you became obsessed with letters. You could already identify the alphabet, but now you look for letters everywhere and spell out signs, sounds and read simple words. It makes me so excited for you to learn to read! You make words with your bathtub letters and spell out the names of your favorite people...or randomly put letters together and ask me to read it.

Following on the success with letters, you started watching another dvd "Math Circus". You use the giant single legos to represent your version of a quidget (except you refer to it as a "twidget") and demonstrate basic math skills. Amazing! You can also count to 100 and constantly beg us to write all the numbers out. Where has this love of math come from?

Your latest favorite toy? The iPad. Baba brings it over each week and you have mastered an assortment of games. In fact, you are able to use it better than your Mommy or Daddy. You also beg to look at pictures on my BlackBerry and can maneuver the computer mouse like a pro in order to play Sesame Street games. I find it difficult to comprehend that you have already eclipsed your parents in technology....a feat that will continue far into the future, no doubt.

Despite all this interest in dvds and computers, you still love old fashioned playing in the dirt, reading books and being with friends. You are able to connect almost any activity to some book that we have read. I love watching your relationships with other children grow. You constantly request play dates and told Daddy, "I want to have 12 friends come over to play. We can invite my friends from school and church. We will need 12 hot dogs for my 12 friends when they come to play." I have also observed more recognition of emotion both in yourself and in others. There have been several nighttime awakenings that involve fear, "You won't let the dinosaurs or the bears get me?" And even telling us that "some of my friends were not being nice to me". But usually it is an excited recitation of what you and your friends have been doing and saying.

We are so proud of how you have handled becoming a big brother. Watching you with Sarah fills my heart with an even greater appreciation for my boy. You are a marvel to behold and we love you very much!!

Love, Mommy