Proud Moment

This is a picture of Madeleine displaying the medal she earned at pre-school today. Every year they have indoor races and each child wins a medal for participating.

My proud moment came when she showed me what she did in pre-school today; she wrote her name!!! This has been a personal struggle of mine for a long time. I have committed the cardinal sin of comparing my daughter to other children; one in particular. She went to Sunday School with Madeleine at the church we used to attend. She was potty trained by 18 months & coloring in the lines and writing her name by the time she was 2 and a half! I used to think, "Why can't Madeleine do these things? Am I doing something wrong"? I never spent much time teaching her to write because I thought that was something they learned in kindergarten. However, when other children her age were writing short stories (that is a slight exaggeration) I thought to myself that I need to work with her. Oh how I tried, but she had the attention span of a gnat. She would rather play with her dolls, play dress-up, or run around outside. She has always been a free spirit (rather than rigid like her mother). She is okay with coloring outside the lines while I am a perfectionist and color inside them (if I color outside the lines just a little the picture is ruined). When I heard through the grapevine that children are supposed to know how to write their name by the time they enter kindergarten I panicked since that is 6 months away. So, I have been setting 10-15 minutes aside/ day to work with her. Day 1 was frustrating, but by Day 2 she was eager to keep trying. The practice must be paying off because this is what she did all by herself in school today:

The only error I see is she forgot the 'e' after 'd' (the 'e' at the end was cut off by our scanner) but can you blame her? The poor child has the world's longest name!

There you have it folks! I am just tickled pink with Madeleine's progress. Maybe by the time she starts kindergarten she will be able to write her name in cursive (just kidding).