Speaking of ‘kids that old’…

Tomorrow is the pup’s birthday. She’ll officially be 9. NINE. and she’s my BABY and she’s just 366 days away from entering double digit birthdays! Oh. Em. Gee. *sigh*

TBF, he called me up to see if she had a problem with stories about spiders (No, though she does have a problem with REAL spiders in the bathtub when she wants to take a bath… then she’s all BROTHER SAVE ME and stuff…) because he was with his niece at a book signing, with Randie Sue Elliott for her new book, Spidey’s Human. He braved his OWN arachnophobia as there were giant spiders on the table and in the author’s hand, in order to get The Pup her own autographed copy! The pup LOVES books, and LOVES ones that are autographed (she carried around her copy of Sagwa I got her last summer for months – in fact, she just rediscovered it and carted it off to school again) so I knew she’d adore it!

Thus, when it arrived today (Hurray for priority mail!) and she checked the mail, and discovered a package with her name on it… I couldn’t force her to wait till tomorrow. I mean, I could have, but that would have been mean, even for me! So I let her open it right away:

Her reading has improved by leaps and bounds this year, since getting her into Mrs. W’s class. All of my kids had difficulties early on, but once they find that switch and things start making sense, there’s no stopping them – the older two read almost as much as I do now, and the Pup is well on her way to being the same way. (Trick for parents everywhere: “Sure, you can keep your light on a little bit past bed time – as long as you’re reading.” Works like a CHARM.) In fact, here she is reading the back cover so that you know what the book is about. She didn’t practice it first, and there’s a few mishaps and mispoken words in there, but all in all, I cannot BELIEVE the change from this time last year. I’m so proud! Now, you can be proud too! (shut up. My kid is so better then your kids. *g*)

Mah BAYBEE!