milestones

I have hesitated posting this recent accomplishment, not wanting to be too much of one of those blogging mamas bragging about their kid all over the web. But after sharing with a couple of friends, it was pointed out that this blog IS Spencer's "baby book" - his journal for recording all of his greatness, so it would be remiss not to write about the fact the SPENCER IS READING AND SPELLING! We discovered this last month when parents were invited to school to observe some of the work the kids had mastered. Spencer's teacher brought over a box that had several objects along with laminated cards that had the names of those objects, and gave him simple instructions to match them. We stared as he sounded out each word and then located the object to put them together. Our kid is really reading - not just sounding out m-i-l-k on the carton at breakfast when it is already obvious what is contained inside. Next, his teacher came by again with a box of (sorted) letters and requested a couple of words for him to spell. Jim and I sat there thinking we might have to prod his thought process, but we just waited and watched in silence, our jaws agape, as our son picked out letters from the box and lined them up on the carpet to spell the words she had requested. Our kid is spelling. Holy cow. As we were leaving the school, the staff in the front office was just bursting "we've known about Spencer's work for about a week now, but we didn't want to ruin the surprise of letting you two to see for yourselves!" They were so proud and pleased with his work. And, most importantly, Spencer feels really good too.