Remember My Name

We are so proud when we see our children learning. They smile, roll over, sit up, crawl, walk! Maybe its the teacher in me, but I like the "other" first: writing their name, counting by 2's, learning the multiplication tables AND when they surpass me in knowledge. Justin is very good at explaining to me about things that I know nothing about. I love it.

Today while moving the desk Jacob had outgrown out of his room, I noticed he had carved his name on it! I called him over in unbelief that I had never noticed this before. With his big smile and giggle he said, " I did that when I was 6 and look I wrote the "C" for Collier because I didn't want anyone to think it was some other Jacob."

When Paul and I first married his family would tell me stories of Paul. Paul was the baby of the family and so all his siblings had stories. One of my favorites was when Paul had just learned to write his name and he went into his brother's bedroom and on his brother's desk, he wrote his name! Paul was so proud of himself that he learned to write his name.

Our daughter was proud when she learned to write her name. She was sitting, rock in hand, on the trunk of our car when she decided to practice writing her name. In big 18 inch letters she spelled her name, correctly, on the trunk. I was so upset. I took her around Alamogordo explaining graffiti and that it was against the law to write on other people's property. Just like Paul and Jacob, Chelsea was just proud that she could write her name.