Bragging on my kids

Both of my kids had very fun and busy schedules today. My son's first grade class went on a field trip, my daughter's preschool class had a teddy bear picnic on the lawn complete with pizza and juice, and then both of them got to go play at a friend's house after school. Other than the part where my son decided that he had some good reason to pee in his friend's backyard, they were both really well behaved.

After dinner and showers, the kid both spent some time drawing and coloring. When I went to look at what Abi had drawn I was amazed to see her name, beautifully scripted, written several times. I asked around to see if anyone helped her, but nope! She learned it at school, she said, and she did it all by herself. I was so proud to see how well she did, and thrilled because it's the first time I've seen her do it at all. Look!

And here it is again, complete with colored teddy bear:

For those of you who may not understand why this is a big deal, I should add that my first-grade son has learning disabilities, and that even now, near the end of first grade, much of his writing is barely legible, including his name. This was my very first experience ever with seeing one of my kids learn to write successfully and almost spontaneously. And Abi still has another year and a half before she starts kindergarten, so I'm relieved that she has such a good start on her writing.

However, just as my daughter is learning to write seemingly overnight, my son's reading skills are really taking off. Tonight he read to me the entire first chapter of a Hardy Boys comic book that we got from the library. True, it was only a few pages, but for a child of his attention span, it's like witnessing a miracle to see him read that well. He even read words like "advantage" and "frightened" with barely a pause and no help at all. Again, that may not be spectacular progress for other first graders, but seeing it in my son makes me want to cry with thankfulness.

Those kids are a lot of work, and there are certain behaviors like peeing in the backyard that need improvement, but they are both doing exceptionally well, especially given all that they have just been through.

Now I have to go kiss their sleeping little faces one more time.