I can do it all by MYself!

That's Jonathan's proud cry these days. From climbing into his carseat, to riding his tricycle, he wants us to know he's independent and a big boy. Except when he's not in the mood, that is. We often put on his shoes or his coat when he cries out "Help! It's too hard for me."

I introduced him to a website recently called Starfall.com. It teaches phonics and reading and is really quite clever. At first, Jonathan was content to put his hand on the mouse and let me guide the cursor, but pretty soon he wanted to do it on his own. However, computers are so sensitive. One spin of the mouse wheel and the page would scroll down to the boring stuff at the bottom of the webpage. Or Jonathan would get so involved that he'd wind up manuevering the mouse on the edge of the desk and run out of room. Then he'd chant "mommy help mommy help mommy help!" That got old quick, especially since Jonathan loved his new "letter works" and wanted to do them every evening. So I decided to teach him some mouse skills.

It's amazing what these kids can learn with the proper motivation. I jsut refused to fix the messes Jonathan got into. Instead, I told him slowly and methodically what to do. "Pick up the mouse. . . move it forward. . . put it down again. Good!" He had it down by the end of the first evening. He immediately grasped how to navigate through links and knows where all his favorite games are. He even learned how to play Memory, since the computer can enforce waiting for turns and looking at only two cards at a time.

All that letter work paid off when Jonathan read his first word. He saw a picture of kids playing with letter blocks and sounded out "Duh. . . uh. . . guh." It's a good think I was already sitting down when he then announced "That says Dog!" I gave him a huge hug and bragged about it to everyone I saw over the next few days. Jonathan must have realized that this was a pretty special trick. He now insists he can read everything. We went to the grocery the other day and parked next to the cart corral. The sign said "Please return carts here." Jonathan volunteered to read it to me, and this is what he came up with: "Please put the wagons here so they don't bump the other cars." And of course, ended it with "I read it all by MYself! I'm a big boy now!"

Indeed he is.