There are a lot of cool things about being a mom

but this one is definitely the coolest.

This morning, Melody and I skipped church because we'd seriously overdone it Friday and Saturday and baby girl was just hurting and worn out. I figured we'd snuggle up and have a quiet morning watching a movie and snoozing, but she clearly had other plans. She wanted 'to learn.'

See, on Friday, we went to Chick-Fil-aA with her favorite friend in the world James and his cousin Collin. James and Collin are 7 and they were reading their bags. Melody just stared at hers, looking sad. Collin said, "Can't you read?" and Melody looked distraught. She said, "I can kind of read, but the things I can't, I can get my mommy to teach me to read." I didn't think much of it at the time, just felt a little sad for my girl.

So this morning, she started begging for 'learning time' so we did some words on the magna-doodle. After getting into an argument about 'silent e' we had to watch the Leapfrog "Complex Words Complex" DVD again. Then play the letter game from "The Letter Factory" and then use the Word Whammer. That was NOT enough. We played six games of The Very Hungry Catterpillar card game and 2 of Cinderella's Glass Slipper game. Then she still was not satisfied. She wanted to LEARN. She wanted to do "Knick knack phonics" and I could not figure out wth that meant. Finally, it clicked. I got out Hooked On Phonics and she quickly read through the first four books. The second two slowed her down, but she got through them. Then she promptly rolled over and went to sleep.

It clicked later that she had finally found her motivation: wanting to be big like James and Collin. I'd known for weeks that she was on the verge of figuring it out, but didn't see the need to push her until she was ready.

It was just amazing, watching my child's brain work that way. Seeing her look at the page and understand what is on it. Thinking of all the things I have taught her and explained to her and worked with her on over the last four years and how learning to read is a huge life event. There's very little you can accomplish in the adult world without understanding that basic concept.

I was a little worried about how Dixie would take all this. After all, Dixie is five months older and, well, knows it. She takes it personally when Melody is better at her in anything, and I understand why. Hers is not the easiest position to be in. Dixie would be perfectly capable of learning to read any time she wants to--she just hasn't seemed to want to yet. Sitting still is simply not her style.

When Melody told Dixie, Dixie just got that beaming goofy Dixie grin on her face and said, "Great! Now you can read me my bedtime stories!" She ran and grabbed a book off the shelf and made Melody read it to her. Melody struggled through it, but did her best. It was a lot harder than the Hooked on Phonics books. When she was done, Dixie just laughed and said, "Cool! We don't need Daddy anymore!"