Positive Monday

When much of what issues from your kid's mouth day to day is howls, protests, and shouting--thank you, age 3--it's nice to have an afternoon where you pick up a smiling kid from school and hear,

"Mommy! Come meet Mia's mommy. Her name is Emily, and she's over there. See? She said Mia could have 5 more minutes to play. I just met her. Come on, I'll introduce you."

and later,

"Mommy, I want to go to my school--what's its name? [this from the poor 3 year old in preschool #6 of her life]...I want to go to it until I'm six! ... What? Really? I can go there until I'm fourteen?! [It's a preschool-Grade 8 school.] Yes! Can I do that? I want to to do that!"

***

When two years of schooling has produced a fairly steady refrain of "I don't like math. It's so boring," it's nice to get four weeks into a second-grade year full of math, coming at her from all different directions (that is, from five concurrently operating curricula), and have the following exchange:

Me (looking over the optional enrichment math problems for the week): Wow, your Sunshine Math is getting a lot harder!

E: Who cares? It's still fun.

This was from the kid who, when told at pick-up that Daddy had a soccer game on the front lawn until 6 and Mom had back-to-back meetings until 5 and that she should busy herself somehow outside the assembly room or on the edge of the soccer field for a few hours, was found at 5:15 playing with a friend on the soccer field sidelines...with her math homework for the whole week completed.