Meanwhile, on the OTHER side of the “whiteboard wall”…

Same whiteboard, a little later on the same day… I have these whiteboard “stickers” from another set, so I stuck them on the $2 dollarama stick-on white“board” where both littles have been enjoying them.

And tonight, when nobody was looking and Naomi was supposed to be getting ready for bed, she pulled off all the stickers and made “circles” where she wrote the name of each object.  Phonetically, by herself.

• FOG = frog
• BEY = bee
• UBEL = umbrella
• SAR = star
• RANBO = rainbow
• LADBG (the G is upside-down) = la-d-bg (what a great license plate for an entomologist!)

Okay, she’s a 5.5-year-old of normal intelligence, so this is not a miracle or anything.  But it is so rewarding to have watched her progress so closely… to know exactly how far she’s come (from wanting no part of reading and writing at ALL last year) and exactly the journey it has been.  Earlier tonight she did a colour-by-number sheet and was able to decode most of the colour names on her own, despite her lack of self-confidence.

Deciphering the horrid Disney Fairies colour-by-number:  “G-R-E-E-N.  What does that say?” 

Me, washing dishes in the other room:  “What do think it might say?” 

“Green?

“Yup, you’re right.”

“Really???”

With the older kids, bringing their work home from daycare, I always felt so removed from the process.  Like, one day they came home toilet-trained; one day they came home reading.  Not my responsibility if and when it happened – I left it to the professionals. 

These days, there are no professionals – just me. 

Maybe this is the kind of moment that makes the tough stuff worthwhile.  And I know it’s too much to hope for, but maybe this is the moment that will mean that, as a teenager, she never screams at me, “you are the WORST mother!”

p.s.  She coloured one of the Disney Fairies completely brown with black hair – of course.