A Note To Todd

I am so proud of Todd for the progress that he has made with his reading. I am amazed at how quickly his reading has improved. The first book that he "read" required a bit of help from me. Now, he can successful read books at his level without much assistance.

This weekend provided me with an opportunity to write a real note to Todd that he would be able to read independently. As I look at it now, it seems awfully harsh for my first handwritten note to my child. The circumstances were this: Brett had been working long days this past week and took the day off on Friday to go fishing. Because he had been working late on Thursday, he was not able to go bed early before the fishing trip. He came home on Friday night after the boys were in bed . . . exhausted.

He made a teasing comment along the lines of, "I have a feeling I'll be yelling at the boys in the morning." Meaning, he knew that the boys would wake up early in the morning and want to come into Mom and Dad's room to talk to us, to play, to tell Dad who was the "early-bird", or for some other reason and Brett would still want to be sleeping. I knew that I also wanted to sleep in longer than the boys, so the idea came to me to write a note. I was trying to write the sentences easy enough for Todd to read. I was so excited about the thought of him reading and understanding the note that I kept on going with my "Do not's".

I taped it to the bedroom door at just the right height and went to bed. The note ended up being unnecessary for Brett. He wasn't able to sleep in past 7:00am. Too many 5:00am mornings for him. 7:00 is sleeping in! Todd still read it, and I think that Brett encouraged him to follow the advice on the note for Mom's benefit (who was trying hard to sleep in until 8:00am, but who gave up and got out of bed at 7:45am--an hour past my usual wake-up time).

I passed Todd in the hallway on my way to the kitchen and he informed me that he only opened the door to put his pajamas into the hamper (legitimate reason). I asked him if he had read and understood the note. He replied that he had and then read the whole thing to me. I was so proud of him.

He was so proud of himself that he peeled the note off of our bedroom door and taped it to his own.