Molly’s taken a bit of time off from work, thank goodness, and so has spent a lot of time with Sheffie and me this week.

Impressed with his vocabulary, she taught him to say, “Genius,” despite my warnings about the dangers of overpraise. (This child already applauds himself for even the smallest effort. For instance, choosing not to throw food off his high chair generally triggers quite a lengthy ovation.)

We’ve also been working on counting around here, and with Molly’s help, he has “one” and “two” pretty much down. We’re stuck at three, but I’m confident we’ll get there.

So yesterday, when Shef was carrying around a couple of plastic clothes hangers, the instructor in Molly sensed the imminence of what we in the field of education call “a teachable moment”:

“How many hangers do you have, Shef?” she asked, as he toddled by.

“Two!” he announced proudly.

“That’s right!” she cooed. “Very good.” I agreed that this was quite impressive.

Apparently Shef did too because he smiled at Molly and said, with perfect comedic timing, “Genius.”



I’m not really so worried about his self-esteem.