WORTH IT ALL

My firstborn, Jesse, has been such a mellow kid from the day he was born.  The first three months he’d wake up to have some milk and go back to sleep right away.  In no time we were sleeping through the night.  At five months, I would leave him in his highchair, his swing or even on the floor and he would just sit there and calmly play with whatever toy I had given him.  He started walking at 11 months and to our surprise, he never wanted to climb anywhere or bring down anything or jump around.  He was simply a passive, super chunky, super handsome, extremely cautious mellow baby. Oh, how we enjoyed his infant and toddler stages!

By school age, I was a bit worry just like a normal first time mom.  But he did more than fine in kindergarten.  As of matter of fact, he managed to be an honor roll student the whole year long!  So, the obvious expectations were for him to just be as good through out first grade.  I mean, for the first 5 ½ years he show nothing but extremely well-behaved demeanor.  Well, it actually went better than expected.  During his first trimester as a first grader he came home daily as an “outstanding” student.  And by the end of the trimester he was awarded with the Principal’s Honor Roll.  That little 6 year old had all of us so impressed until…two new kids joined the school.  Oh boy, since those two kids became my son’s best buds, his “outstanding” became a simple “great day” or even worst “ready to learn.”  (These are levels that the teacher uses on a daily scale to encourage the kids to make progress.)  I will not lie about my mixed feelings.  I’ve been sort of happy that my son is acting like a normal 6yr old “boy,” but also a bit worried that he can be so easily influenced and get off track.  Well, needless to say, we had to take an even more active role as parents.  For the past three months, we have worked on setting limits and goals (no DS or Wii) and honestly, though his grades have been kept up (always 100%), we had no major expectations.  So you could only imagine our excitement when yesterday, we received a letter in the mail notifying us that this second trimester he’s not only receiving the Principal’s Honor Roll award but even better: the “Leader of the Pack” award.  Our kid’s achievements are beyond gratifying and is truly worth it to spend as much time as possible to be involved in their lives.  We are more than grateful to God for the opportunity to be parents and honored to be entrusted with such beautiful souls.