First Grade

So, I am a teacher... have been for a while. I love my job. No, really I do, but that's a whole other blog entry. Tonight I just want to write about something really quickly while it is still fresh, because I never want to forget this feeling. My "baby" is in First Grade this year... and we were just reading together... well, he was reading to me. This is not a huge milestone, a big celebration, or is it?????  All day long, I help kids. And as other teachers will probably agree, we spend the majority of our time with the neediest kids, the ones who just don't quite have it all-together, the ones for whom reading is really tough ,and the ones for whom math might as well be in a different language. I spend eight hours a day, sometimes more, helping the kids who struggle.
And, tonight, in the quiet moments before bedtime, it was actually 15 minutes past bedtime, my first grader asked me if I could listen to him read.  Sigh... I was so tired and the ongoing mental list hadn't stopped yet for the day (you know, the towels that need folding, the lunches that need packing, etc), and I HAD already listened to him read his assignment for the night, but of course, I said yes (this time).  So, we sat on the couch alone in the living room, and he read to me from Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and this child who I never thought I would get to take a bottle, the one who put me on bed-rest at 26 weeks, the one I prayed for hard that he wouldn't come too early... read to me beautifully. He sounded out 4 syllable words with ease and he lapped up the praise I gave him. And, even though my eyelids are so heavy as I write this, I didn't want to forget this special blessing of the day.