Theo is Amazing

My son has a tiny artist's notebook he carries around. It is about four inches square and has a rubber band to hold it closed. It is the type carried by Bruce Chatwin, Picasso and others. A creative friend gave it to him when he turned four. He draws in it, writes new words. He scribbles and plays tic tac toe when we are trapped somewhere boring where he must be still and quiet. It is a journal of a pre-verbal child, traveling into the world of words. It is all there.

Sometimes he writes words as he follows me around the supermarket, or tries to write sentences in it while I cook dinner.

He knows I have notebooks I am always scribbling in, so he does, too.

One day recently, as I was making breakfast, he asked, "Mommy, how do you spell amazing."

I helped him sound it out.

Then he read aloud his sentence.

"Theo is amazing."

He had written it all over the page, over and over in his oversized letters.

I felt my parents stern response bubbling up inside me. "Be modest! Never say that about yourself. Let other people say that about you."

But then I just smiled. I thought, "What a miracle that he can say this about himself. That he believes this about himself. I have succeeded as a mother. This is the best thing I could possibly teach him as he heads out into the world."

So I gave him a huge hug and said, "Yes, Theo is amazing."