Magic spell

Stopped into Urban Outfitters recently to pick up a lamp. I noticed some gigantic metal wall letters — 20-somethings can use them to spell clever things on their wall, I suppose, or artfully intersperse them with books and objects on a shelf. But I thought right away about Alex. He would love these, I thought. Unfortunately they are $14 a pop, making an entire alphabet an extravagance.

Giant wall letters from Urban Outfitters

When I caught up with Jeff and the boys at a coffee shop, I took out the bag and said to Alex in that sing-songy gift voice, “I have a present for you!” He lit up, reached out and unwrapped his big red A. “Boy, that was a big hit!” I said to Jeff. You don’t often see someone as pleased with a present as Alex was with that letter.

Turns out Urban Outfitter’s web site has some different types of big letters on sale, so I spent some time picking the sale ones and planning to go back to the store for the giant colorful enamel ones I saw first. I’m not really sure what I had in mind at the start, but clearly Alex needs a complete A through Z, with a few repeats of some of the vowels (and maybe some consonants). They’re big, they’re expensive, they take up a ton of room, they make an echoing, clattering sound when they hit the floor. But my boy loves them, and they are the very building blocks of words, of communication itself. So we’ll get rid of some toys and focus on these for a while.