Isn’t it great when you try something out and it actually WORKS? Especially when it’s not exactly mainstream, and you’re just following your intuition and hoping for the best and trying to have confidence in something you’ve never actually done before and you know it may negatively impact your child for life…? Well that’s the way I felt about teaching my children to read. Granted, many people learn to read later in life and still become adept readers, but for me, I wanted a lifelong connection to good literature for my children. It’s something I was blessed to have, and I just feel so intensely the lack of it when it isn’t there for them. When Neils was on the verge of hating books (he wouldn’t even let me read to him anymore) at the end of his public school days, I just fretted constantly over how I was going to help this child re-connect with all the joy and beauty of a good story, and well-chosen words. Well tonight, I feel like we’ve finally "arrived." Neils has started his first extensive writing project. I knew we’d made some progress in developing a love for reading, but still thought he hated everything connected with writing! He aims to write a chapter book entitled "The Marvelous Adventures of the Powerboys." As we were preparing the cover for the notebook that is to become his book, he shared these thoughts:

 "You know, Mom, I didn’t used to like books very much. But now, I LOVE books. I wish I could marry them!" (giggling like crazy)

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Never again blog while my children are awake. Or maybe alive?

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We’ve finally started spotting those baby birds we knew must be in there somewhere! A week or so ago we started noticing that Mama bird didn’t really leave the nest anymore. Oddly enough there seem to be at least three different care-givers in this family, as when we leave through the front door we are generally bombarded by at least three adult birds. I’m going to have to do more research about that… but Daddy bird, and … another bird … would bring her little tidbits to eat now and then, but she just sat. We knew it couldn’t be long before those precious eggs would hatch. Then yesterday we saw these:

Just a couple of Golden Treasure kind of days we’ve had recently. Seems to happen a whole lot more often in the Summer.

Although perhaps if we had a fireplace I could pretend it was the sun the rest of the year… I’ll have to think about that one.

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