Ways of Seeing

One of the things I've always been fascinated by is the way Leo looks at things in his world. I'll never forget the time he was about four years old, when he leaned over and showed me his half-eaten cheese quesadilla. "Steps!" he declared. At first I didn't know what he was talking about. But I looked at his quesadilla and sure enough, the little bites he'd taken had created a pattern that looked indeed, like steps.

Last night before bedtime, Leo was standing in front of the open refrigerator, getting ready for his nightly pre-bed glass of seltzer (what is it with my boys and their seltzer fixations?).

"MOMMY! The seltzer! It looks like Mickey Mouse!"


The three bottles of seltzer are to the right of Leo, with the silver caps. I don't know about you, but I can definitely see Mickey Mouse there. Of course, I needed Leo to point it out.

The other day I set out a package of juice boxes for Leo to put away in the refrigerator--it's one of his "jobs."

"Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune," Leo chanted.

There are eight juice boxes, in a package, just like there are eight planets in the solar system. Leo had lined up all the juice boxes on the shelf inside the refrigerator perfectly. Planets.

"NOT Pluto!" (Leo is very adamant about reminding us this whenever he gets a chance.)



Granted, this example of juice boxes as planets was a little harder for me to "see."

There was a time when I would have given anything to know what was going on inside Leo's head. As Leo's language has exploded over the last few years, I don't have to long to know what' he's thinking, the way I used to (now, the struggle isn't to get him to speak, it's often, to the frustration of everyone involved, to figure out what he's saying).

But it's still evident to me, through Mickey Mouse seltzer bottles and solar system juice boxes, that Leo's mind works in a very unique way and he sees his world in a way unlike others do. Unlike anyone I've known before, really.