And then sometimes they surprise you!

At the Women of Faith Conference in September, I adopted a little boy in Justin's name from Tanzania who was born the same month and year as Justin. We sent a little envelope of things in December for Antidius's birthday/Christmas and received a letter back last week. Tonight we had 10 minutes before the brownies were due to come out of the oven so I sat down with Justin and asked him to dictate a letter back to Antidius.

Much to my amazement, Justin got a pen and (with help on the spelling) wrote out the entire letter himself. To my knowledge, he's written two words in the past: Justin and Mom. Although he can recognize all his letters, I never knew that he could write them. Sometimes in my effort not to push him to grow up too soon, I miss testing his limits to see what he's really capable of. Since we've got more than 18 months before kindergarten, I'd better start thinking up some challenges for his developing little mind!

Here's the letter (with my translations since the letters run left to right until he runs out of paper and then go right to left). If you hunt and find individual letters it is decipherable.