(For example, for the letter A it was the 26th word on the list, for Z it was the 1st word on the list)
“Guess what I learned today?” my eight year old son asked me at the end of a very long and very trying day at work.
“Um, what?” I continued preparing dinner as he bounced beside me excitedly.
“Can I do it? Can I, Mom? I’ll be really careful, I promise.”
It was the words ‘be careful’ that got my attention. I stopped and wiped my hands, taking the opportunity to sit down for a minute. “So what did you learn today?”
“I wanna make a pen.”
“A pen?” I was still a bit perplexed, blame it on fatigue.
“A quill pen! We learned how they did it in school today and I remembered the feather I got at the turkey farm last year. So can I? Please?”
I stood and turned back to getting dinner ready. “We’ll see. Right now I need to fix dinner. Do you have any homework?” My back to him, I never saw the look of disappointment in his face.
“It’s already done.”
“That’s good. I’ll call you when dinner is ready.”
I was almost done with the dishes when I remembered the conversation. “Scott, can you come in here?”
“I’m watching my show. Can it wait?”
“No, please come here now.”
He shuffled in, dropped into a chair and let out a huge sigh. He tipped the chair back onto two legs, knowing how that irritated me.
“Four legs, please.” The chair landed with a thump. “Thank you. Now, before dinner you were telling me that today you learned how to make a quill pen. Let’s go over the details and maybe we can make that our new project.”
His eyes lit up. “Can I get my feather?” I nodded and he raced out and returned with the turkey feather.
I smiled and my fatigue melted away as he outlined what needed to be done. “Let’s do it!”
Thank you.