Reading and riding

It's amazing how much progress Tani has made in the last couple of weeks. He recently was able to read his first chapter book without help at school - Magic Tree House Tonight on the Titanic. We went out to Earth, Bread & Brewery to celebrate, Tani had a Joe without sauce and I had a beer with my flatbread pizza. A couple of nights later both Melissa and I were tired and Tani was having a hard time going to sleep. When that happens we sometimes would let him have "quiet reading time" where he could turn the light on and read for a bit. Usually it lasted 5-10 minutes and then he'd call for us. Well this time, he didn't call for us - Melissa was sleeping and I thought Tani had fallen asleep. A little after 10 pm I went to go check - he had not. He was reading a chapter book. Luckily, the loss of an hour of sleep didn't have as much impact compared to when he was three or four years old.

Tani riding his bike with gears and hand brakes

The next Shabbat we went to our friends Mike and Miriam who have three children Ariella (11), Rafi (9), and Tamar (7). Tamar had just learned to ride a two wheel bike the the kids were all riding around in the parking lot of their synagogue which is right next to their house. Tani clearly wanted to be able to ride also - they had an extra bike which fit Tani and did not have training wheels. Within ten minutes, Tani had figured out how to ride it. He still needed to figure out turns and stopping, but that came quickly in the coming days. He now loves to ride his bike everywhere - to synagogue, school, and to the Henry School playground. He still walks his bike up the hills, but can go a lot further now. He recently said, with training wheels it was easier to ride down hills and harder up hills. With two wheels, it's easier to ride up hills but harder down hills. He's actually made good progress on the down hills. He's very happy.

Grandma Susan is visiting us now and will accompany Tani tomorrow for Grandparents day at Project Learn. I hear they might perform something together. Stay tuned.