4. A Green Triumph

4. Triumph! - On our way to Adoration this week, I piled the kids in the car early in the morning. Kristiana had brought a book along for herself.  Alex insisted he needed a book too.  A copy of "Green Eggs and Ham" was sitting on the floor of the car.  I grabbed it and handed it to him.  In minutes of leaving our home I heard Alex stumbling through the words of the book.  I was sure that he was going to stumble through four or so pages and then give up and look at the pictures in the rest of the book.  He called out, "Mom, what's this word?"

"Honey, I don't know. I am driving."  Then I thought for a couple of seconds and replied, "Alex, there are a lot of 'would you, could you' in the book."  Then I spelled the words for him.  All of a sudden I heard him motoring through the book.  Every once and a while he would ask, "Mom, what's this word?" I would ask him to spell the word and then I would tell him what it was.  By the time we arrived at the Church twelve minutes later, he only had four pages left to read, which he finished in the chapel.

I had no idea he could do that.  I take that back. I believed he could do it, but I am always asking him to stop squirming and just read.  But a relaxed, buckled up, un-pressured, reading session in the car is all he needed.  I am looking forward to years of independent reading!  I am really hoping to instill a love of reading into our children.  When I look back to my childhood, I recognize all the years of missed opportunities to enjoy good literature.

Kudos to Alex!