It's what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.

This blog could have been about how we went to see the Sandmartins nesting near Nottingham this Friday, and how we spotted herons, snails and slugs on a woodland walk. Or it could have been about the division by sharing that Ferdy requested we do before we go out, (although that may have been a bit boring).

But it's actually going to have to be about reading.

As mentioned a few times, Ferdy has not wanted to learn to read at all. He managed to spend his first year at school not reading any of the books that he brought home, and seems to have been extremely successful in getting us to read to him all the time, whilst totally ignoring all mention of looking at words or letters.

He has quite recently, encouraged by speech bubbles in The Beano, started to read properly. But since Easter (when no one was paying any attention to his reading) things have abruptly clicked and he is suddenly spelling out and reading everything he can see. 

In the last 24 hours tl clockwise to middle: reading instead of going to bed; reading instead of getting up;
reading to Gil instead of eating breakfast; reading in the car; reading instead of eating supper; reading in a cafe;
reading instead of lunch; reading when we got home; reading in the evening...

Ferdy didn't walk until he was nearly two; we were seeing a paediatrician as he showed no signs of walking at all. She suggested some exercises, which he wouldn't do. One day, when I was on the phone, he got up, walked past me in the kitchen, through the hallway and into the garden. I had never seen him walk before. He walked everywhere from that moment onwards. 

He is my son, so of course I think he's pretty amazing, but I am in awe of his ability to do things when he is ready, and only then, despite all the pressure surrounding him. Who knows what our children could become if we gave them the resources, but left them to do things at their own pace?

(title quote copyright Oscar Wilde)