Parenting the Way I Always Thought It Would Be

There was a day within the past two weeks that the big boys both sat (of their own volition, no handcuffs or duct tape!) at the dining room table and colored, with markers, crayons and colored pencils, while I made dinner.
For 30 minutes. 30 QUIET minutes. There was no fighting. No wrestling. It was magical. I was almost afraid to mention it to Joe lest I pop the magical bubble of a moment in time subtitled Parenting the Way I Always Thought It Would Be (we were only missing the Mozart in the background).
Later that week Mason asked to get out the folder I had spent hours making this past Ausgust, just beofre our trip to the Keys, full of worksheets, coloring sheets, etc. He brought it with him on our trip to Flagler and colored pictures while a movie played on the DVD. Like, instead of watching the movie. OK, are you following me? Miracles are happening, or an alien has stolen my son and replaced him with a budding artist. Either one, it's great.
Now, constantly, every free minute, Mason is pulling out the markers and colored pencils, drawing pictures for us, writing notes. I love this! And not to be outdone, Levi is often participating in the coloring and drawing time, too, which means there are regular intervals of peace and quiet in my home. MY home. The one with three boys. Yep, believe it, I ain't lyin'.

(Insert big deep cleansing breath here.)

Wait, there's more.
More, you say? How could this be?
I know, right?Mason is reading. Shout it from the rooftops: Mason is reading! This is SO FUN. Everywhere we go, he's picking out words he knows, reading titles from the newspaper (watch out!), asking about fine print. A few of you may know I like books a little bit. OK, books are like food to me, I can't go a day without a little quiet book time. So the fact that my little guy is really reading is absolutely thrilling to me.
Again, the power of positive peer pressure... Levi is "reading", too. He has his few books that he knows-- Brown Bear, Space Kid-- and will read them over and over to anyone who will listen. He asks, too, about words and what everything says.

AND... as of this week Micah has decided to love books, too. He knows when it's time to go for a nap or bedtime and starts pointing insistently at his books. He picks out Fuzzy Yellow Duckiling or First 100 Words (he likes to roar at the lion in that one) most nights, but sometimes it varies.

So, happy mommy. Parenting the way I always thought it would be. Little glimpses to keep me going :)