Why Otter may be able to spell at a young age

We are quickly building a longer and longer list of words one cannot say around Otter without toddler-sized consequences. For example, "grapes" and "popsicle" must be spelled or coded in some way, lest the small child hear you and be inspired to spend the next half an hour making the 'COLD' or 'GRAPE' sign in perennial hope of getting some to eat.

Now, this weekend, we added a new one to the list: wagon. My parents have a lovely red two-seater wagon, one that G and my father and I all assembled a couple years ago for my nephew. It has a door and cupholders and a storage compartment in one of the seats, and when half filled (one kid) is pull-able by one adult with ease; when full (two kids), it is pullable by one adult without ease. I solved this dilemma the last time I took my son to visit my parents by offering my three and a half year old nephew the opportunity to help me pull Otter along. My nephew is still young enough that this did, in fact, sound like an opportunity to him, and even after he got discouraged from helping me pull, he didn't get back in the wagon right away, so half the trip was a half-full trip.

This past weekend, my nephew was not at the house when we got out the wagon. This was fortunate as Otter has developed a near-insatiable appetite for being pulled in the wagon, up to one end of the street, turn around, down past my parents' house to the other end of the street, back to the house, back the first end of the street, and so on. I suspect that between them, my parents made upwards of twenty-five circuits of the street.

When my father finally found this activity somewhat stale and pulled Otter and the wagon into the driveway, and opened the door of the wagon to let Otter out to go play on the mini-swing and mini-slide, Otter calmly reached over and closed the wagon door again and sat back down, clearly waiting for another ten or fifteen go-rounds.

In telling this story, we have found that we must spell the word "wagon" or risk Otter dropping whatever he is doing (including nursing) and heading straight for the door, ready for another marathon wagon session. This spelling trick will work only until Otter begins spell himself, which makes me suspect that he'll learn earlier rather than later.