Ian is 7 and Chase "reads"!

Oh, my WORD.

Two great things today:
1- Ian turned 7.  Holy smokes.  I have a seven year old.


...and he is amazing.  What an incredible boy he is- kind, patient, loving, smart, funny...hot headed at times, a champion procrastinator, and the best big brother to his "littles".

So, yeah.  He had a great day.  It started with 7 balloons on his ceiling when he woke up, then a Toaster Strudel (did you know they have a Boston Cream flavor now??!) and hot chocolate breakfast, a new BeyBlade, a half day at school (where he forgot to pass our the $20 of cupcakes that I sent in with him) and finally, Bryan picked him up and took him out to see Star Wars 3D- complete with the biggest tub of popcorn, a hot dog, his very own soda, and 3 boxes of candy.

I have one happy seven-year-old tonight.

2.  While the big boys were out, the triplets and I stayed home.  The evening was pretty normal, until we sat upstairs in Chase and Zeke's room for bedtime stories.  Then two things happened:
         a.) all of them sat still and listened to the books.
         b.) Chase "read" a book to us!

I know, I know, I know.  He wasn't really reading it.  But he was showing HUGE pre-reading behaviors.  He tracked print, he followed left to right, he said the memorized words, and he reacted to the story.  Total awesomeness.

This was the book (which really is quite hilarious):

I caught him on video because he kept reading it over and over again.  The video is a little long, and it wasn't his best run-through...but he and Gavin and Zeke are so freaking adorable that it is worth 4 minutes and 30 seconds of your life.

This moment is so important for me, because with Chase- he is just so stubborn and hard headed that I sometimes wonder if anything that we do really sinks in.  Yeah, we read a lot to him, and we speak in full sentences with him, and we encourage imaginative play, and try to enforce positive behavior with him...but just by nature, it takes a LOT of repetition to see results.  I sometimes wonder if I'm doing the right things, or doing as much as I need to do.

This is a confirmation of the path that we are on.  I'm so proud of him...and me, too.  And his teachers.  We're all pretty awesome.