Letter of the law

The G-man has a new secondary obsession: the alphabet. He loves letters and sings his ABCs non-stop. Wherever we go, he points out letters, naming them himself and then asking me to as well. Constantly.

I can't simply read a story anymore; I have to do each word letter by letter. Longest. Story times. Ever.

Driving in the car? I have to read makes, models and license plates, forwards and backwards, for as many cars as I can figure out from the instructions in the back seat of, "That one! Do that one! No, the B first!" (Note: I have no idea what direction he's even looking in.)

Now that he recognizes all the letters and can write most of them, he's moving on to learning the individual sounds they make. Suddenly, I'm realizing that the alphabet and the english language don't always make sense.

For example, why do we have C? Aren't both of its sounds already covered by S and K? I'm having a hard time explaining to the G-man that the hard C in "cat" is not a K and the soft C in "center" is not an S. Come to think of it, what the hell is with one letter making two sounds anyway? As it seems superfluous now, can't I trade C for one of the G sounds? That would be easier to work through with G-man, too. Guitar and giraffe both start with the same letters in his name, but don't actually sound alike. Poor li'l guy.

Why does X sound like Z? What is up with W looking like two Vs, called double-u, but sounding like "Wuh"? A nod to the French for at least calling it dooble-vay for double-v, but they lose points for Z (zed), Y (ee-grek) and the boatload of letters they tack the 'vay' sound onto in general.

And don't get me started on the vowels. Ever try to start sounding out words with a 3-year-old and having to tell him why they all seem to keep changing?

However, let's just leave all that behind. I don't think G-man is going to start reading for some time but he can be happy "reading" his letters and writing them out. Surely, there's no controversy in that. Right?

Ah, but there is! G-man was quite perplexed that the A in the Candyland name on the game board had a rounded top. "That's not A," he said. "A is pointy."

Sigh.

Some letters are pretty standard, but in looking at the fonts in his books and even my own handwriting, others are subjective. At least three ways to write big G, two for little g. M's with pointy tips or round? Little a is a crapshoot. He gets confused when people/print materials don't use the horizontal lines on the top and bottom of big I, so that it ends up looking like little l. Or not dotting little i or little j. I put a line through my Zs. And cursive?! Surely, that will freak him out.

Just when I think he can't take any more, he started writing his numbers, too. Write 1-10 on a piece of paper and then consider how many acceptable ways there are to symbolize all of those.

Double sigh.