Today's not-so-favorite moments included . . .
. . . Daniel riding over my big toe with his motorcycle.
Today's favorite moments included . . .
. . . Joy saying "I'm a ninja fairy."
. . . Joy reading books to a little neighbor boy who came over to play.
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Sometimes when I read about Joy's literacy I feel a stab of mommy-competitiveness. I know I have good reasons for delaying reading with my own kids, the most prevalent being my own precocious reading. I read fluently as a three year old, and it made me so far ahead in school that I began a lifelong pattern of being bored and not diligent. I want my children to be closer to their own grade level in their ability and to learn the need for schoolwork. Sometimes though I have the sneaking suspicion that I'm just being lazy in not teaching them to read before they enter kindergarten. It's so blasted easy to judge and second-guess one's own choices. There is no criticism implied of your literate ninja fairy--I hope that she inherits your talent for diligence (and escapes the bent towards procrastination that you and I share). Or in other words, perhaps your kids might inherit a tendency to do things just because they're right. Mine are definitely going to get some boundary-pushing tendencies from both parents. When they've got a dad who exploits computers for a living and a mom who whiled away bored hours in Guatemala by figuring out how I would circumvent security measures such as razor wire around residences (almost every house had a design flaw if you looked), I think that setting them up to see schoolwork as necessary and beneficial rather than totally useless is a needful piece of social engineering.
I worry about Joy being underchallenged (and therefore bored and unmotivated), too. Perhaps you could find an engaging private school that fires their imagination (if you can afford that, and if such a thing even exists).
Ironically, I didn't actually "teach" Joy to read. She just kind of picked it up on her own as we helped her write emails to grandparents and repeat words of verses as we studied scriptures together at night. I'm not sure I could replicate the achievement if I tried.
I guess we'll see if Daniel and Anna manage to learn the same way their sister did.
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