Happy Valentine's Day!

As with most holidays, I spent today at Cameron's school volunteering at the party. I love seeing Cameron interact with his friends -- it's amazing how much he has grown in the course of the past six months there! He a little social butterfly, fielding requests to play on the playground, sit together on the line or do two-person works. (And marriage proposals, of course!) Along with all those friends, there were special projects galore: cards, beaded hearts, decoupage boxes and best of all cookie decorating!
But every guy needs a little time to themselves to unwind, so Cameron took a mid-party break for a visit to the library corner.
I view reading as nearly as vital to my survival as, say, oxygen. No matter how busy I am, no matter how tired, I can't imagine a day without spending a little time with a book. I always hoped that I could instill that love of reading in my children and, so far, I'm feeling hopeful! Cameron adores a good book and his reading skills have really taken off recently. He can read lots of three letter words and is starting to sound out and spell words as well. He has been particularly inspired by the kid's show, Word World, in which "words come alive." This morning he got out his alphabet set and, to my amazement, began to create words that he wanted to come alive. Here's a sample.
His alphabet set is my ingenious but indefinitely postponed idea for a tactile alphabet. My goal was to decorate each letter with a type of material that started with that letter. So, you see here, C is covered with corduroy, A with argyle, T with terry cloth, D with denim and G with glitter. What's that? The letter O? Ummmm, O is Ooops, I haven't gotten around to decorating the O. This idea was born shortly before Matthew and, well, once Matthew got here a tactile alphabet fell far down the list of priorities. Maybe before Matthew is spelling I'll get it done!