30 Days of Thankfulness - Day 9 - Progress

I have to write this quick. 

For starters, its 11 p.m., which is approximately 2 hours after i need to be asleep in order to not completely hate my life in the morning.

secondly, my neighbors (that have been missing for over 2 weeks) have decided to apparently deconstruct and reconstruct the entire wall that hangs behind my bed.  all i hear is hammering and it's getting closer and closer to my head ... thankfulness is not a feeling i will be feeling for very long.  frustration would be more like it.

regardless, that doesn't change the fact that today i realized, i've had a good week (thus far) at school.  no major meltdowns via any of the students, no major mishaps, and lots of learning has happened. even more than that, the kids are having fun AND making tremendous progress.

today was progress report day.  in kindergarten, we view that as, more or less, another-thing-we-have-to-do-that-takes-a-ton-of-time-but-doesn't-really-get-anything-accomplished day (okay, maybe its just me.  but i know that to be true).  of course, progress reports weren't done already; i had to do them today. during planning, during lunch.  during literacy centers and nap time.  but they came together in the knick of time. 

perhaps the best part of the day was sitting with my sweet friend, A., who came in at the beginning of the year fairly low.  i was concerned he might have a learning disability or a special need that had gone undiagnosed, as he didn't even know his name.  he told me e-v-e-r-y single capital letter.  only missed 2 lower case! and his letter sounds?! OH ME, OH MY!

but the real kicker, what made my heart LEAP out of my chest, was the fact he isolated, blended, and CORRECTLY PRODUCED the WORD 'sun'!  i literally jumped up and hugged him and squeezed him and begged him to be so excited at what he just did! y'all, he was READING!  I was amazed.  seriously.

flipping through their writing journals, i saw SO much progress; from teeny-tiny stick-like figures, to drawings of people with detailed features.  from pre-communicative random letters, to words separated by spaces, with the proper use of capital/lowercase!  it is monumental the progress made in three months! (wow, has it been 3 months ALREADY?!)

needless to say, yesterday was a reminder that day-to-day, we hardly notice things as they change: the leaves as they go from green, to yellow, to gold and brown, to bare branches.  that extra 5, or 10, pounds that has crept up on us.  the wrinkles that have hardened our adolescent faces.  friendships that grow stale overtime and distance.  but when you stop, intentionally, to evaluate any given moment against a set moment past, you can truly see with 20/20.  progress is being made all the time. even when we don't see it.  keep marching.  keep on running for the goal.  you're a whole heck of a lot closer than when you started.