Celebrations

I realized that time is slipping away and Quinn is already 15 months old. Oh, my, I guess time really does fly as you get older. I am afraid I am going to blink for too long and my home is going to be missing the all the giggles, little feet running around, the stickers on the windows and floors and of course, the whining... but I don't think I will miss that.

I find myself trying to remember each of the children at every milestone that Quinn is accomplishing. It really is wonderful having a baby with 4 years between the next oldest. Aliza, Trevor and Ella are each 2 1/5 years apart, but in a lot of ways they met their milestones together. Aliza and Trevor began talking about the same time. Ella and Aliza potty trained together. For every milestone Quinn achieves, she has 5 people to celebrate and cheer her on. I know how special this makes her feel and it is such a joy to see the older kids celebrate her accomplishments, without jealousy or regret, but with pure excitement. Now that is not to say that no one else ever has a celebration for an accomplishment! My kids know how to celebrate! Ever since Aliza was a baby we have celebrated every accomplishment, big and small for everyone! But there is one celebration that we have not had, and that is celebrating Alizas ability to read. For Trevor, reading has come fairly easily. He has had some struggles, but he enjoys the independence of reading and is really reading well for a 7 year old, which we have celebrated. Ella heard someone say once that as children loose their top front teeth, usually in 1st grade, they are magically able to read. So Ella, a very bright and determined 4 year old has decided that she is going to learn to read. She told me she really wants to learn to read to her self at night in bed, instead of just looking at the pictures. That is a great goal, which we celebrated, but the next thing I know she is hitting her front teeth into the kitchen table, trying to knock her teeth out so that she will be able to read. Ella will probably be our earliest reader, she is already sounding out words and knows some sight words. I am so proud of her desire to read! And then we have Aliza. In first grade Aliza still did not consistently know her colors, or letters. It was not until 2nd grade that she was able to tell us stories about her day and complete sentences. In 3rd grade I began to realize that Aliza was very delayed in school. I started understanding how much more her peers knew than her. Not only is she 2 feet shorter than most of her classmates, but she is also not near their maturity level in many things. Going into this fourth grade year, I started wondering if Aliza has achieved the highest educational ability that she could? Never would I suggest that we give up, or not encourage her further, but maybe we needed to stop battling her every night with homework and just accept her delays and that reading may be one celebration that we would not have with Aliza. We have a very good relationship with school and her teachers know her very well. We feel like she has all the support that she could possibly need, finally for the first time in 5 years! We stressed at our last meeting with the school that our goal for Aliza is that she be able to read. We have always kept our expectations high for Aliza, feeling that if we settled for less than what her siblings had/do, then we would be selling her short. So while getting out homework on Tuesday evening, Tom comes across a small photocopied book. Alizas teacher wrote across the top: "Good reading" Tom asked Aliza, " Can you read this to me?" Up until this day, Aliza has struggled with reading. Simple sight words, THE, IT, SHE, HE have been very challenging for her. She will know them one day, but not the next time you ask her. So of course Tom thought that with each word she would need help sounding the letters out, and so on...But no, Aliza did not need one bit of help! She read all three paragraphs of the book, without help or stopping. Tom came and asked me to come listen to Aliza read. The entire family was sitting around the table as Aliza read to us. Trevor and Ella were so proud of their big sister. I was in tears. And she was all smiles! A few years ago Aliza told me that she wanted to get big so that she could drive a pink car to her BFF Allisons house for a sleepover. I told her that you need to be able to read to have a drivers license. So after reading the book, she asked if now she could drive to Allisons house. The following day Aliza came home from school and without hesitation sat down to do her homework. She pulled out a story from her folder and asked if she could read it to me. Sure, go ahead... She read the entire story about a Mother, her child, with the words bread, chicken, little, he, she, boy, girl, etc. I was still a bit suspicious as to whether she has also memorized this story. I wrote down various words from the story, one at a time, and she rattled them off like it was something that she does everyday and as if I was belittling her. So I went to the bookshelf and picked out an early reader book... "Here," I said, "read this". And sure enough, she read it. The next day she was home sick from school. We were in the kitchen, I was doing dishes and she said, "Mom, can I do my homework?" Seriously, I could not make this up, I would not believe myself...She pulled out her math packet and did the entire weeks worth of homework. Who is this child I wondered? While getting ready for school this morning, I was in the shower and Aliza comes into the bathroom, and sits on the closed toilet and starts reading a book out loud. There is a celebration like none other going on in my heart! Words do not express the emotions that I feel. Being a reader is such an important accomplishment in life. It opens the doors to independence and jobs, it eliminates the differences between peers, reading provides entertainment and all of this helps to encourage Alizas self esteem and self worth! I will never again doubt that Aliza can not accomplish anything that she sets her mind to! One of the most beautiful parts of parenting is the humility that children bring into our lives!

http://youtu.be/R_EX7Qga3Zg