Ahhhh, memories.......

For some reason, as I was sitting here blog reading, I began remembering little things about when I was homeschooling Daniel. One fond memory I have is of him and his desk chair. He could do more things with a desk chair than I ever thought imaginable. Sit sideways. Sit backwards. Sit upside down. Wiggle. Squirm. Bounce. And, still, he learned. Oh, not that he always sat in a chair at a desk. Au Contrare'. He did schoolwork on the sofa. On the floor. On his bed. At the kitchen table. On the back deck. At the picnic table. And, still, he learned. A few times, we even went to a small state park located about five miles from our home....Stroud's Run. We would pack lunch, take some firewood and our books and off we would go. There was a small lake there and we would build a small fire, have lunch, enjoy the outdoors and do schoolwork. That was one of the many great things about home-schooling. And Daniel was a good student and made it fairly easy for us. I remember how he would be sitting SOMEWHERE doing his math and just be singing or humming along as he did it. I asked him one time how he could possibly do math and sing or hum along as he did it and he replied with exasperation at his mother, "I don't know, mom, I just can, okay?" and he went right back to his work. Well, okay, sorry to bother you, my son. He actually got scolded in public school one time for humming. I believe he was in the 3rd grade, his last year of public school. He has always been a hummer and a singer. *smile* (thank you, Lord.)
Another funny memory: While Daniel would be doing his schoolwork I would sometimes be playing Text Twist on the computer. I'm sure many of you are familiar with it. Well, each time I would scramble the letters, Daniel would try to pronounce them. It was sooooo funny!! For example: A E I M M D or M I D A E M or M M A I D E (I'll let you guess the word. You can put the answer in the comments.) and each time he would pronounce it phonetically. Of course, some were funnier than others, but we did have some wonderful laughs. And, to this day, he is an excellent reader. At church, we had a Bible-reading marathon one time, meaning, we each signed up to take turns reading over a period of days. Of course, Ed, Daniel and I took our turns. Come Sunday morning, Bro. Chappelear asked Daniel to come to the pulpit and read a particular chapter that had alot of begats in it and you know what that means. Alot of hard-to-pronounce names. He had listened to Daniel read during our Bible-reading marathon and was impressed with Daniel and wanted him to read aloud for the congregation. He just breezed right through it. Needless to say, I was a pretty proud mama.
Now, all of this is not to say that Daniel LIKES to read. *sigh* He doesn't. But he CAN. And I believe he WOULD enjoy reading if he would just allow himself. Perhaps someday. Of course, he had to read while we were homeshcooling. I would assign him, oh, maybe a couple of chapters a day to read for a book report. He would get his book and head for the sofa, albeit a bit grudgingly. But a few minutes later, I might hear him chuckling over something he was reading or he would finish his assigned chapters and tell me how good the book was, but he would never just continue reading on for the pleasure of it. I would sometimes sit down with him and read a few chapters to him, as he always loved for me to read to him. When he went to Tri-County Career Center in his 11th and 12th grade years, he had assigned books to read in Literature there. So I would go get the assigned book from our local library and read it along with him. That way I knew what he was reading and we could discuss it and so on and this made it more fun and interesting for Daniel, too.
When Ed and I first married, he didn't read anything but his Bible which is not a BAD thing. It is just that I have always been a voracious reader, from the Bible to the daily paper to magazines to non-fiction and fiction. Well, over the years, Ed, too, has become a reader and almost always has a book at hand to read. He used to read just Louis Lamour, but he has read all of them and most of them two or three times, so I introduced him to James Patterson and a few other authors that he really likes. I'm hoping that Daniel learns to love to read one day, too.