YaYa can Read!

I remember sitting on my mothers lap as a kindergartner as she tried in vain to teach me to read.

For whatever reason I hated it, and would have no part of it. A year later it clicked all at once, and by the end of 1st grade I was reading Henry and Ribsy and getting yelled at by my teacher for reading aloud more than the required one page.

Two weeks ago this coming Sunday Lisa told me that YaYa could read.

I didn't believe her, even when she brought out a treasury of Dick and Jane and plugged away at a page. She's memorized it, I thought.

That evening though she sat down with me and read several random pages, diligently sounding out strange words and plowing through the page.

Lisa then wrote out 'car', and many variations on the word: bar, star, etc. Once she sounded out 'car', she got the rest of the words lickety-split.

No one's claiming she can read Shakespeare yet, and she still occasionally chafes at being asked to read a word (but often is very, very eager) but it's better by far than I did at her age.

I'm proud of her, and of my wife. Sure, when she was a teeny baby I held her in my arms and read a Bernard Cornwel Sharpe book to her, and I've taken her to the library a lot, but it's my wife that's read books aloud to her a dozen or more times to my one; it's my wife that had the patience to plug away at teaching her to read when I remembered my youth and wouldn't even try; and it's my wife that continues to make her flex her newfound reading muscle.

* * * *
That same day I took my Godson/nephew to see Jackass 2, and I must be a boy because I thought it was hilarious. A mere mention of the best parts would get me a TOS violation on AOL, but I thought it was great.

My nephew was probably a little young for it, but since he's seen the original I figured no harm no foul.

Afterwards we went for a ride and (at his mother's request) gave him 'The Talk' and some info on drugs to boot. He seemed to listen.

Hopefully some of it sunk in.