Anna Reads - I Go Nuts

I make an effort everyday to take in this little person in my life. She's four-years-old now and I can't help but grin at how lovely she is and what an awesome age 4 really is!

Mainly, I love how we can really get to know each other now that the conventional spoken aspect of communication is present. Other things I love:

• She lets me brush her hair and likes shopping for clothes with me.
• She tells me how much she loves me and that she misses me when I go off to work everyday
• She totally gets that I miss her too when I'm gone every day!
• She says 'please' and 'thank you'
• She says, 'excuse me, may I speak' when she'd like a turn in a conversation.
• She tells me when she's sad, happy, tired or upset - I LOVE that she feels comfortable sharing anything with me.
  

LOVELY! Just LOVELY! And to top it all off, yesterday evening, I started pulling together a 'goal sheet' and lesson plan of sorts that only a mother who home schools her child has the time for (I really don't know what came over me but I'm sure this isn't too surprising for those who know me). One of the goals was for her to read a kindergarten level book by the end of the summer.

After dinner, I thougth I'd introduce her to one if the new projects to facilitate her reading and I was amazed at how quickly she read the following sentences already:

See Anna dance.

See Anna Play.

Anna is a girl.

Sasa is a dog.

She can also spell and write out the sentences nearly flawlessly. Umm, what did I miss here, people? I had the classic - 'I didn't teach you that - how did you know that?' moment. Clearly, I'm not as stereotypically Asian as you would think I should be - I mean, Anna should be doing calculus by now, right? Just kidding.

Anyway, I can see how quickly my enthusiasm for this 'win' can degenerate into a psycho pushy Mom but I promise I'll take it easy. It's just so great to see her get excited about such an important milestone - although, I should say that she did read it with a kind of 'duh' attitude so I suppose I haven't set the bar that high?

;)

As a treat, I let Anna come to the office with me today. For once, I didn't have a single meeting and thought it would be a great opportunity for Anna to see what I do - although perhaps not understand it. 'My mom sits in front of a computer all day long'.