Now I know my ABC

I had absolutely no intention of teaching Vir the alphabet at this age because it's hardly the most important thing for a 2-year old. It's way behind all the other things he needs to work on right now, such as not spitting out food that he doesn't like and handing it over to the nearest person, not running around naked in front of guests screaming "nanguuuuu nanguuuuu" (nakeeeeed...nakeeeed), not peeing first and informing me later, not eating ice cream with his hands, and other important life skills.

I did end up buying him one of those wooden alphabet puzzles in my never ending quest to keep him productively occupied and out of trouble. If the speed with which he has picked up the entire alphabet is any indication of ease with which he will navigate the Indian school system, I'm quite relieved. We now know that he is good with rote memory, which is all you really need, right? Now if only we can figure out how to make him sit in one place...hmm.

Anyway, he still doesn't know the actual letters...for him, everything is a B. But he does know words that start with each letter and never misses a single one. This is how he sees things:

B for Aita (his grandmom)
B for Baggdu (our dog)
B for Car (could there be anything else?)
B for Dehradun (the place of eternal fun and freedom)
B for E (not that we know why, having never actually tasted one)
B for F (again, no clue what it must be like)
B for Gogoi (took him forever to get the pronunciation right causing much anguish to Vijay)
B for Huggie (he really does get those perfectly)
I for Icecream (can't go wrong on something so important)
B for Juice (which he makes nana buy from the shop at our gate every single day)
B for Kite (just by rote...he has never actually seen one of those)
L for Lion (don't ask me why he gets this right)
B for Mamma (sigh)
B for Nana, Nani, Powder, and Pirate (he clubs them together as a family unit - the last two being my parents' pet dogs)
O (for nothing...he just knows what it is)
B for Papa (also known as Vijaaaay when he's not responding to the politer version)
B for Queen (doesn't have a clue what a queen is but could fool you with his confidence)
B for Rabbit
B for.... (he hasn't learnt this one yet!)
B for Teta (his grand dad who has a police car that goes waaaaaooooon)
B for Udit mama (my brother)
V for Vir (this one is important for his school admission interviews, I'm sure!)
B for Water
Axe (that's what he calls it!)
B for....(still working on this one too)
B for Zebra

There you have it...his first piece of formal learning wrapped up around the people and things in his world. I'm just happy that B is for Mamma:-)