The other day, Austen asked Dada to write not only her name on her doodle board but ‘Dada’ and ‘Mama’ — and ‘Pop,’ ‘Grandma Mindy,’ & ‘Chacha.’ She’s realizing that objects have names made up of letters.
Thus far she hasn’t been as interested in letters; numbers have been more intriguing to her. She sings the alphabet song and can spell her own name, recognizing the ‘A’ ‘U’ ‘S’ ‘T’ ‘E’ and ‘N.’ But, up until now, the letters on a page didn’t mean very much to her: they were just a bunch of bending lines. Now, she’s starting to get that there’s some importance behind the strings of letters she sees all around her.