Small But Mighty

Though she won't be three until the end of May, Zienna constantly amazes me with how quickly she's picking up basic preschool knowledge. For some time now, she's been reciting the ABCs and counting to ten. She's recently moved on to twenty and counting small groups of items. She's got basic colors and shapes down pat, and she's the first of our kids to master the classic Tupperware Shape O Ball—so much so that I gave it to a neighbor since Zienna could do it, like a rocket scientist doing a Rubik's Cube, in mere seconds.

Still, much of what's behind those feats is memorization. Taking things to the next step is another story. So, imagine my shock when Zienna began doing puzzles, including some labeled for ages three and up, out of the blue. After watching Zoë assemble a few, she'd asked to try some herself. But aside from the "put the pieces where they go" wooden type, she'd not had much luck—until last week, that is. Hanging out with me as I cleaned the garage, Zienna jumped when she saw a bin containing numerous puzzles Zach and Zoë had outgrown long ago. Since many were missing pieces anyway, I saw no harm in letting her play with them. I sorted out the pieces as best as I could and then left her to experiment.

A few minutes later, Zienna called out to me saying she'd completed one of the puzzles. Yeah, right, I thought, ready to praise her for trying. Except, she'd actually done it—and the one she'd put together was a picture of Reptar from Rugrats, a character and show she'd never seen, meaning she had no reference point from which to work. So, yeah, I praised her alright. And I did it again when she completed Barney, Dora, Blue, and a few others. It absolutely blew me away that she'd done them with no help at all.

The next day, we were back in the garage, and I found a box containing more advanced puzzles. Among them was a Strawberry Shortcake model with fruit-shaped pieces for each number from one to ten. I gave it to Zienna, and it wasn't long before she'd matched the berries to their respective places even though they were all quite similar. Figuring she was up for a challenge, I removed the pieces and asked Zienna to find me the number three, which she did. Then I asked for five. No problem. And so forth. By the time we were done, she'd confused "1" and "7 " and "6" and "9," as well as not recognizing "10." But the rest of the numbers she'd identified without hesitation. We celebrated her success with a spirited round of high-fives, her favorite.

Then this morning, as I was holding her in my arms, I noticed Zienna was studying my shirt.

"Daddy, there's three A's on your shirt," she said, holding up the same number of fingers.

I looked down and, reading "JAMAICA," realized that yep, she was right.

"And there's a C," she added, pointing to it. Right again.

And though she called the "M" a "W," I was still mighty impressed.

When I made the decision in 2001 to stay home full time, I set a goal of having Zoë, who'd just turned one, reading before kindergarten. I'd spent ten years working for the company behind Hooked on Phonics, so I knew it was possible. I ultimately fell short on my goal, but just barely. Then again, I hadn't really start working with Zoë until she was three, and I'd had to curtail my efforts the final summer before school since Zienna needed my attention and was leaving me exhausted.

Given Zienna's early start, I'm even more determined to have her reading when she heads off to kindergarten. With sixth-grade Zach reading at a twelfth-grade level and second-grade Zoë devouring books from the middle-school section of the library, Zienna's got some big footsteps to walk in. But you know what? That's one kind of sibling rivalry I'll definitely encourage.