Before hitting publish I read over my work, double checking that the words are mine.  True words that will one day paint a portrait for my children of the ups and downs of my parenting.  My children's name, on this blog, are pen names only to secure the fact that when they are older their real names aren't google-able.  Because as much as I would like to think that the stories I post are mine, they are very much theirs.  I think long and hard before publishing.

I only say this because the following post would not make any sense without providing a little background on a subject that I don't, at this point (google-able or not), feel comfortable discussing thoroughly.  In so many words, school does not come naturally to my son.

I know this.  He's beginning to sense it.  My daughters end up being ignored.

I sequester the girls to an hour of play-doh, puzzles, books and/or Barbies in the formal living room turned playroom located a stones throw away from the homework station.  The girls have adapted rather quickly to my Heisman hand in their face when approaching me with questions/suggestions/whines while I work with my son.  "Mommy is working with Jay.  Keep yourselves busy.  Play school or something...."  For the last twelve weeks I have been belching star words, regurgitating syllable blends and hiccuping grammatical rules that make no sense at all to a beginner reader.  Our (my son's and my) hard work is beginning to pay off, as he is becoming increasingly more confident in his school work.

As I grow tremendously proud of my son from the positive outcome birthed from the hours spent on crying over make-shift additional homework I created just to keep him on-top-of-his-game I realize that the girls have been much ignored.  For hours each week.  Not so much ignored, per say, but definitely not acknowledged.

Fifi, the toddler, can't identify a pink from a red or a square from a circle.  And.  Lola, the kindergartner, doesn't know...

Geesh. I haven't had the time to check into seeing what she knows.  Or doesn't.  I've been feverishly consumed with my first grader and have only checked in on her for my minimal school/homework obligations.  Yes, she can memorize her weekly poem and yes she can write her name and yes she can draw a picture.

Little did I know that my daughter, in the last twelve weeks, has taught herself to not only read but write (with the help of kindergarten) perfecting her skills during the time I encourage her to "play school or something" with her baby sister to get them both out of my hair.

"Who wrote this?"

"I did!"

"Where did you learn how to spell?"

"I just sounded it out in my head.  At school.  And at home, from listening and taking pictures in my mind."

"Can you read?"

(Insert the entire anthology of Dr. Suess books being effortlessly read, with a smile, by the middle child)

"Where/when did you learn to read?"

"At 'Look at Book' time in school.  Everyone is quiet and I can just teach myself.  I loooooooooove it!"

It was an enormous, GIGANTIC, huge wake-up call for me.  A moment in which I felt so incredibly happy for her and equally as devastated for my lack of everything with her.  I shook the rug from underneath my toes and immediately instilled a new tradition in our family that started today to keep me in tune with all of their educations.

"Tell me three things that you learned today.  Two of which are true and one which is not true.  I will try and guess which one is  false."  I tickled them before bedtime, after hearing about that method to get your kids to talk more about school on the conservative FOX nightly news segment.  Quite possibly THE best thing I picked up from that station.  Kudos FOX.

The middle child sensing my parental fail and living up to her tag line as the "true testament of my faith" was first to contribute.  But it was my son whom tricked me into believing one of his truths to be a false.  We all laughed at the incredible image he  painted with his words.  I was never more proud of them both.