In a coworker's office today, I saw a picture drawn by her preschool age son, who had signed his name at the top. I noticed with amazement that his capital E looked very similar to mine at that age - one vertical line and instead of three horizontal lines, there were about a thousand. It got me thinking about how kids learn to read and write and that while the process is amazing, it is also amusing.

I remember that we had a colorful magnetic alphabet on our fridge which must have contributed greatly to my learning process since even to this day when I picture a letter by itself in my mind, I picture it in color which when I think about it, corresponds to it's magnetic counterpart. Has anyone had similar experiences I wonder?

One day I walked into the kitchen and there was my brother with a smug look on his face standing in front of a carefully assembled magnetic alphabet. It was perfect except for the letter N which was all by itself far away from the other letters. Picture me at age seven, certain of my ABCs if I was certain of anything. With my hands on my hips I declared, "you forgot the letter N" to which my four year old brother (future art school graduate, blog writer, and, I might add, skillful user of the letter N) replied with equal conviction, "N is not a part of the alphabet." I was dumbfounded. "Of course it is. Why else would it be here with these other letters if it wasn't a part of the alphabet? You know, LMNOP?" "No!" my brother insisted, "it's LM and OP!"   ¶ 10:14 PM