AB…C

Oh yeah, he fought it. Fought it tooth and nail. But in the end his intelligence won out and Luca learned the alphabet. But leading up to it was moments of pure drama.

A while ago I started quizzing him on his ABCs. Or rather, I would refuse to allow him to watch the iPod unless he let me quiz him on his ABCs. Luckily for me, we used the family Star Wars ABCs book. H is for Han Solo, M is for misguided sequels.

But I would randomly point to letter and ask Luca to name them. There were lots that were easy for him. L and E were no brainers because they are tattoos on my arms and happen to be the first letters of his and his brother’s names.

But we’d get to tough ones like M or N and it would turn into the $500,000 question on the old “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” show. The Regis one, not that chump change Meredith Vieira one.

Luca would sit there and stare at the book for long drawn out seconds while the music in my head would build to an impossible crescendo. He’d then blurt out, “M!” and I’d shriek in joy and to simply release the tension.

Occasionally, during the silence, Elijah would get to the point where he couldn’t take it anymore and he’d scream, “M! It’s M! I can’t stand it anymore!” At which point I’d tell him to beat it and go back to reading “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.”

But I couldn’t understand why he was messing with me like that. Why the drama? Why raise my blood pressure like that? Doesn’t he know I have a weak heart?

After way too many nights of it, it dawned on me. Or rather it dawned on Eli. In one such dramatic beat, Eli said, “He’s just counting the alphabet in his head.”

Luca was using the time to work his way through the alphabet on the ones he didn’t know. I’d point to M and he’d have to go through ABCDEFGHIJKL in his head before M showed up.

I kind of loved it. He doesn’t really do it anymore, which is sad.

And yesterday I asked him since he knew all his letters if he knew all his numbers. He said, “There’s no way I can know all my numbers. There are a million of them.”

Smart kid.