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I often joke that I hope that Dash isn’t too smart. Besides the obvious fact that no one likes being outsmarted by a kid of any age, smart kids (or physically or musically gifted ones) demand a certain amount of additional care. You the parent are obligated to foster that talent and let the kid live up to his outsized potential. Here’s where I imagine me saying: “No you can’t go to blah blah school because it’s a two hour drive each way or we’d have to put a second mortgage on our house.” Then I’d be labeled as the bad parent or something. Honestly I don’t know what I’ll say when we come up against choices whatever they are.

The kid is not yet three and here I am fantasizing about what they may be, but I do have an excuse. I was changing his diaper the other day, dreaming of the day he starts to show some interest in using a toilet for something other than a surefire way to prolong the bedtime ritual, and he starts reading the letters of a Frank Kozik print I have from an old Supernova (some may remember their appearance on Yo Gabba!) gig on the wall behind the changing table. It’s a highly stylized font and here he was spelling on e-a-r-t-h-l-i-n-g-s-b-r-i-n-g-u-s-y-o-u-r-t-i-n-f-o-i-l, which is a bubble caption over Kozik’s rendering of Quickdraw McGraw in a Jetsons episode.

Anyway, enough of the hipster namedropping. So the kid knows his letters. I was a little shocked. We have a few letters toys around and I’ve seen him pick out letters on my T-shirt (hence the inspiration for the JCD T-shirt design, which is an effective teaching tool I tell you), but the kid plowed through an entire line of text, rattling it off without missing a beat. Since then I’ve tried to get him to repeat the feat but he almost seems uninterested — seemingly saying a) I already know this and am bored with it or b) I am not a circus animal who performs on command. When I finally do coax it out of him he doesn’t get it perfect the way he did the first time. So he’s two and has more or less figured out his letters. Numbers are still coming, but he’s close.

This kind of reminds me of Dash’s first birthday when we held a Toljabee. This is a Korean ceremony where a variety of symbolic objects are placed on a table in front of the child and whatever he picks up is supposed to be the direction the child will go in. In Dash’s case he picked Plato’s Symposium and a screwdriver. So he’s going to be philosophical handyman or something. I’m hoping for a plumber, which cuts down on student loans and gives him the opportunity to make some real cash, but who knows.

All I know is that it is happening right now before my eyes. Some days I consciously remind myself to take it in because change seems to be the only constant in child development.

P.S. It appears that the “Captain Safety” entry has inspired Dash to dangerous new heights. He jumped off the jungle gym from the third rung on the ladder, scaring the crap out of three mothers sitting on one of the benches watching the whole thing go down. After he did it he laid there still for about 30 seconds taking stock. He was fine, but it was a little scary for those not used to crazed little boys. Worse is a fall off his bed where he got a nasty gash under his right eye from the edge of the bed frame. If this continues I may have to rethink my laid-back approach!