Learning to Write

As a child, my mother has often told me the story that when I was learning to write, that I would become increasingly frustrated because I couldn’t get it right the first time. And because my mother was an elementary school teacher, we had stacks and stacks of the old lined ruled paper and fat pencils.

Last night on the drive home, Boy B asked if he could do his homework when we got home. I mean, I don’t really ever remember a time as a child that I asked to do homework. In fact, I did the opposite that many times, I didn’t tell my mother that I had homework and would do it when I was supposed to be in bed. But last night, after he finished writing the letter Q, both upper and lower case, I asked him to write the first letter of his name and he could not do it.

I had to think quickly, so I flipped the paper over, wrote his name and within seconds, he started writing his name. He was learning to write his name, based off of what I did and showed him. That was such a rewarding moment and experience. It was in that moment, that I felt that the day was complete and that nothing else matter. To see the look on his face that he was writing his own name was just amazing. Was his writing perfect, far from it. But he is learning to write and that is the most important thing.