It's working!

Can you see me rubbing my hands together with glee? My nefarious plan to create a grammar pedant of my very own is working!

Yesterday, Mitch's grandparents sent Ethan three new Magic Treehouse books (numbers 16, 17, and 18 if you're keeping score at home). So, he sat down to write them a thank you note. My mom helped him find a cool blank card to use (a puppy on the front), and then he told me what he wanted to say ("Thank you for sending me the books. Love, Ethan"). I wrote out the words for him to copy onto the card. His penmanship is getting more and more legible and he LOVES to write things, so I was happy to do this. I was very focused on writing the words clearly for him to look at as he wrote, and didn't think anything of punctuation. He copied it, doing a fine job, I must say, and then said to me, "Oh, you forgot to put these," and then began putting periods at the end of sentences and commas after "Love." He took another look and said, "We forgot to tell who it's to! I need to write "Papa and Grandma" at the top." So, he added that, complete with the comma after "Grandma." Mind you, I've not said a word to him about punctuation (except for that conversation we had one day about semicolons and their uses, but I really didn't think he was paying much attention then).

As Mitch said when I told him about it later, "he gets it from me." When I see him use an apostrophe for the first time and - please, God - put it in the correct location, I'll know my plan is a success.