Hey, I did a parental thing!

Sometimes you need to celebrate the small victories.  Last week, Xander had a rough week at school.  For reasons which no adult will ever understand, 3 boys including Xander got into a punching fight.  So, we had a lots of talks with him about why that was not OK.  Then, I gave him a tool of the Angry Number.  I let him pick a number between 10 and 20.  When he gets mad, he should count to his Angry Number before doing anything else.  We practiced it over the weekend when he got upset.

This is what he told me at dinner today:

"[Some boys] at school were fighting.  I was going to go over and punch them, but instead I counted to my angry number.  Then after that, I went and told the recess teacher."

So yay, one less fight in the world because I taught Xander about Angry Numbers. 

If only I could always remember to use my own Angry Number...

Padoras Box

Xander is going through such an exciting time.  He's opened pandora's box to be come a literate member of society.  Suddenly, all those letters that surround the world make sense.  He's constantly sounding out everything that he sees street signs, soap bottles, restaurant menus.  It's fascinating because I've long since forgotten what it's like not to be able to read.  I think this is one of those easy things to forget despite how good your memory is.  It's really cool that Xander has now crossed that threshold as well.  He can't NOT read words in front of him.

On his first report card, he did very well in reading.  His teacher was surprised that he is the 2nd youngest person in his class as he is excelling.  He works really hard, and it paying off as he is reading more and more complicated words.