Huh!

Last night was a first for me!

S had to finish a project up - it was due today. He'd tried to tell me that he was going to 'finish' the project during lunch recess today, but I didn't think that was going to fly. We stopped at the dollar store to get a sheet of bristol board - which was one reason he claimed it couldn't be completed at home last night.

Hubby and I had a meeting with the Fish/Game Club we belong to, so when we got home from the Y, I asked S to make sure he printed out the his information, then explained that when I got home from the meeting, I would help him put it on the bristol board.

When we got home from the meeting - the project information was printed out. I was a tad surprised, I will admit. The kitchen was cleaned up too; all the dirty stuff was even in the dishwasher!

S pulled out my 'fancy cut' scissors, and I got to work trimming up the construction paper he wanted to use on the project. He trimmed the information pages, and then glued them onto the construction paper. He had wanted to start gluing right on to the bristol board, but I suggested he wait until all of the information was ready before he did that. Surprisingly, he heard my suggestion.

After S had placed all of the information on the background paper, he just sort of looked at me as if to say, "What now?" I asked him if he had any ideas of how he wanted the information to look on the bristol board. He didn't seem to know what I meant, so I placed all the various sheets in a haphazard way, and asked if we should just start gluing.

Suddenly this look of dawning crossed S's face. He said that the layout wasn't really what he had in mind, and then he started moving the pieces around. After a few minutes of this, he changed the bistol board from short to long position, and started relaying the information. He took this quite seriously, and I could tell his mind was just click-click-clicking away as he laid each page.

After a good 10 minutes of shuffling and rearranging, S deemed the layout complete. He then gave a really big yawn and asked if it would be cheating if I glued the pages in place because he wanted to go to bed. I assured him that since he had actually written the work, and determined the layout, it wouldn't be cheating if I secured the information with glue.

He went and brushed his teeth - without prompting!! - and went to bed.

S finished an entire project, ON TIME, without shedding one single tear, or giving me grief about having to work on it!

The sky is beginning to open..... do you hear the angels singing?? Okay, well, maybe not quite THAT joyous an occasion, but let me tell you, it was really nice to just see what needed to be done and have it completed without a fight!