Simple Pleasures

On Monday, February 27, Christopher came home with a folder full of letters from his fellow students.  These letters contained requests for me to read to their class.  Some of them were short and to the point, while others were elaborate including drawings and questions about me and things I liked to do with Christopher.

Now Christopher’s teacher is the kind that you remember for the rest of your life.  She loves the parents to be involved with their children.  One way to accomplish this was to invite parents to read to the students for about twenty minutes in the morning. I have to say it’s pretty difficult to say no when you have almost twenty letters from second graders requesting it.  I found out I was the first parent to be invited and was quite honored.  Friday, March 3 was decided to be my day for reading.

The night before, I carefully went to Christopher’s bookcase and selected several options.  One book was too long, another too simple, and then the perfect book revealed itself.  That night, Jennifer was the lucky one, and apparently in Christopher’s prayers he requested that I didn’t embarrass him in front of his classmates.  Jennifer shared that with me when we went to bed.  No pressure!

The next morning Jennifer drove us all to school.  I walked into the classroom and watched all the morning rituals of a typical second-grade class.  The students have a board where they are supposed to record their own attendance and select which lunch they want.  Their teacher calmed the class down and made several announcements.  And then it was time to watch the TV where a couple of older students give the school wide news and lead the Pledge of Allegiance.

I was then introduced as the guest reader.  Christopher was all smiles.  Then each of the 21 students introduced themselves with a handshake and their name, and promptly sat down in front of me.  I thanked them all for inviting me and all their wonderful letters.  Answering some of their questions from the letters, I told them my favorite color was blue, and that my favorite thing to do with Christopher is hear him laugh.

Hoping I had their attention, I finally showed them the book I was going to read, Scooby-Doo in the haunting mystery, “Howling on the Playground.”  I tried my best so that I wouldn’t embarrass Christopher.  I had a little bit of difficulty holding up the book while showing the pictures and reading as my shoulder muscles fatigued, so the book was a little shaky.  All in all it went very well and I did get a pretty good laugh out of my Scooby-Doo voice.  When Christopher came home that afternoon I was presented with twenty one thank you’s in the form of bookmarks.

I feel so incredibly blessed that even after almost five years of being diagnosed with ALS, I am still be able to go into Christopher’s classroom, interact and experience the sheer joy of participating in my child’s life.