Farm

We were on our way to Marblehead for the Easter holiday, which was well documented in pictures, and which featured not one, but *two* egg hunts, and also the unfortunate discovery that if you eat too much chocolate you won't eat any regular food, and if you don't eat any regular food for an entire day you become a challenging hose-beast who hits your mother in the head with a Lincoln Log, causing your Lincoln-Log-hating mother (at the best of times) to angrily close said Lincoln Logs and hide them in the closet, possibly never to be seen again. BUT. Before all that happened, and before we also had a completely charming afternoon dyeing eggs in the garden, and taking bubble baths, and snuggling, and reading copious Easter books, and going to a soft opening dinner at the yacht club, and having a nice morning with your uncle and afternoon with your godparents, before all those things, we were all driving in the car on our way from New York, and you needed a snack. I passed you a pouch of this organic pureed veggie and fruit space food that you love, and which I have finally caved and begun to buy, and am ashamed at how convenient I find it, and even though they're like three bucks apiece I, like all other yuppie parents who have caved on this issue, justify it to myself by thinking "well, at least this way he's definitely eating some kale."

Anyway. Where was I?

Oh, yes. You were in the back seat, enjoying a pouch of tasty organic space veggies, and your dad was driving, and I was in the front seat.

"That says 'farm,'" you said.

"What says 'farm'?" I asked you.

"That." You pointed at the word, which is part of the brand of the space food pouches, and which, to my knowledge, you had never had read to you before. "That's farm."

"Whoa," I said. "You're right. That *does* say farm."

And the following morning, as we sat reading books on the toilet after waking up, you said "That's Dog."

The title of the book was "dog," which you knew, and we'd read it before, but even so. Just for fun, I asked, "That *is* dog! Do you know what the letters are?"

You pointed at each in turn, and said "D. O. G. That's dog."

Is vintage Sesame Street teaching you to read, Succotash? Your dad thinks you might be reading for real by three. Either way, color me impressed, my brilliant baby.

But no more chocolate Easter eggs for you.