Counting to 1,000

Chicago may have been a short trip, but it includes a time change and that always throws me off, plus I seem to have found a summer cold while I was unpacking and being under the weather never helps.

Today wasn't exciting, and that was exciting. Sometimes I just need to revel in the ordinary. Calvin is going to town on the workboxes and I think our version of the method is going to be a good fit for us. They might be just the right balance of my suggestions and his control. Today he moved seamlessly from piano assignments given by Jon, to practicing handwriting, to making maps, to playing a game with me over lunch, all things that were suggestions in his boxes. Later he did some math practice, drew some pictures, made a map of Antarctica using his blanket and his new penguins, played with tangrams and then read to me while I rested on the couch at the very end of the day.

If I was to pick one stand-out moment for today, and maybe every day should have at least one of these lest I forget how beautiful every day is, it would be the moment at dinner when Calvin confidently declared that he was going to count to one thousand. And I'd have to include the moment when I'm sure both Jon and I thought briefly of saying "that will take too long" and instead let him just go to it. He successfully reached two hundred and decided that he would continue the count tomorrow. I enjoyed that moment all the way to the park and back, and clearly I am still enjoying it now. That, I think, is the power of any moment to make a whole day magical.