I’ve always been proud of my kids, but this past week or two I’ve had several reasons to be particularly proud:

• Last week my wife and I went to have lunch with Justin, our youngest, at his school.  Justin is in fourth grade and is an avid reader.  His teacher took the time to sit with us and tell us that Justin has more ‘Accelerated Reader’ points than any other kid in his grade and is reading at a 7th-8th grade level. 

  What made me particularly proud, though, was what she told us next.  There’s a girl in Justin’s class who struggles with reading and Justin’s teacher has teamed him with this girl to read along with her (out loud) to help her with her comprehension.  Apparently it is working well, but Justin’s teacher is worried that Justin may be missing out on his own reading so she asked him if he’d be willing to read into a tape recorder at night and then the girl can listen to the tape while she’s reading during class.  The fact that he agreed to this extra work makes me more proud than I can possibly describe.

• My oldest son, Michael, is in the seventh grade.  He has been selected by his teachers to be an ambassador for the school.  In the near future fifth graders who will begin attending his school next year will be taking tours of the school and Michael’s job will be to escort them, and their parents around the campus.  Anyone who knows Michael knows that he’s an extremely articulate and personable young man and I think he’ll make a wonderful ambassador for the school.  Again I can’t adequately describe how proud this makes me feel.

• Last but certainly not least my daughter Erin, a sixth grader, came home with her second consecutive straight-A report card.  She’s a wonderful student, works diligently at every aspect of being a student and is more "together" than I’ve ever been.  On top of that she’s a beautiful young lady, both in body and spirit and I’m now officially freaked out about boys.  Let this be a warning to all boys out there: I’m watching and I’m loaded for bear.

I’ve now gone on record with my parental pride and this post can also double as a place I can go to remind myself of how great my kids are the next time they really screw up.