Turn the Page

There are a lot of really great parenting milestones. I thought my favorite would be when everyone was potty trained and responsible for their own bottoms. And let me tell you, it's way up there! But we are also really loving this ability to read that the blondes have been displaying lately. They are often found curled up with a book, working hard to sound out words. Declan has also discovered that they will happily practice their skills for his listening pleasure. If he plays his cards right, they'll even read him a book about cars. The basket that once held mountains of board books has officially transitioned to piles of easy readers. The girls will happily read road signs, billboards, menus, posters, store names - and everything else they can put their eyes on.

Killing time at the doctor
office by writing all the words

Things found in the "everything else" category - reminder notes, lists, text messages, news headlines. I learned the hard way that Fiona can read most of my text messages when B sent me a note that was not entirely "clean" for young eyes. Luckily I grabbed my phone before she got to the offending word. Gone are the days where I can leave a list of Christmas presents or holiday to-dos around the house. There are so many abbreviations on my to-do list these days. Apparently if it is a word, it's fair game for these blonde readers!

There was a new entry on the milestones list today ... we took the kids sledding and Mike and I stood at the top of the hill. Because everyone was able to pull their own sled back up! We did, of course, pull some sleds up the hill. But it was random acts of kindness as opposed to constant acts of need. It's hard to not consider this a viable contender for the top spot on the list.