Secured on my fridge with colorful magnets are several
pieces of powerful writing that remind me of the true power and beauty of the
written word. One is a Mother’s
Day card from my Golden Boy. It
was written several years ago, and it goes something like this:
“My mom is the bestest mom in the world cause she is the
best weed wacker. I love her
because she never leaves any weeds.
She never wacks a flower and she loves weed wacken!” Now when I weed wack, I not only
clear the weeds but I smile the entire time.
He’s not my only child who has used the written word to make
me smile. Conveniently, I have several
notes from the girls that hint of great talent. I offer Exhibit A, written by Sassy: “If you don’t mack me soup I will lev
this toon.” I read this one
afternoon as I watched the girls perched upon the rock on the hill in our back
yard – their backpacks filled with Polly Pockets, Barbies, and several packages
of uncooked Ramen noodles. (Call
me crazy, but soup for dinner every night cannot be healthy.)
I was reminded about how precious these first attempts at
writing are as I leafed through a folder my own mother had saved for me.
The folder is golden brown, its manila faded by years of
storage, and inside its fragile arms lay my first feeble attempts at
writing. As I read them I am
propelled back to youthful days of playing outside each day after school, only
to be called in as the sun called it a day, by my father’s loud whistle that
could be heard up and down Lemon Road.
Those days were filled with games of tag, climbing trees,
and playing in the creek that ran along the edge of our property. The writings in this folder reflected
those days. I offer an excerpt
from the essay entitled “Myself”.
“Yesterday I cleaned out the creek in our back yard. It was filthy. I found some fish eggs, frog eggs and
saw an eel.”
But the piece entitled “School” is an award winner. “I don’t like school becaus I miss all
the fun at home. We do lots of
work at school. The think I hate
about school is work. I just hate
work. But I guess that’s the way it goes.”
In kindergarten we aren’t often able to coax long, brilliant
essays such as these from the children, but we do manage to witness those first
shades of brilliance. I offer you
some of this year's writing gems:
Z: “I worshed
mi fish and I fed teim!”
George: “my
favrit thng at skool I lick to go aut sid fur reses.”
Frank: “I
bildid mi lego ship and it wus osim!”
Susie: “my
fafrit tre is a puncon tre. Caws I lik puncons.”
Alex: “I am going to my grermulrs hows.”
Melia: “I bring
chiks to the howse.” (This caption fit nicely under her self-portrait depicting
her conveniently carrying a chicken.)
Amy: “my favrit
fing at scol is ritin.”
Nicki: “Mrs.
Smythe, I writed a lot. Now I’m
empty.”
And finally, after discussing Martin Luther King Jr. for
many weeks, and writing about OUR dreams and wishes for the world, one of our
more capable sound spellers wrote this,
“I wish thar wer no moor whores (wars).”
And it is with great pride that I tell you that this
piece of writing did indeed win the coveted front and center place on his
mother’s fridge.
