Unexpected Moments

The first summer the girls stayed with us, I had only been seeing Gary for 6 months. Bailey's teacher told her parents that she needed to improve her reading skills over the summer in order to keep up with the class. My husband does not have the patience, nor the passion for reading as I do. So, he asked me to help her to learn how to read. I borrowed my sister's hooked on phonics program and braced myself for a long summer, because let's face it, what kid really wants to read over summer vacation! (I loved to when I was a kid, but I think I am in the minority) We both shed tears that summer. She cried every night at 8pm when I made her stop playing outside to come in and read. I feared every night that she would hate me for the rest of her life.

After we moved to Michigan, I took Bailey to the library regularly. One day she mentioned that summer with the hooked on phonics, but in a way that caught me completely off guard. She said, "Remember that summer in Indiana when you helped me learn to read. I loved reading that summer!" She said it with such an excited and happy tone of voice that I knew she truly looked back at it as a positive time in her life. It took me a few minutes to recover from my bewilderment. When I did, a wave of joy came over me that I had never experienced before. That was one of my favorite stepmother moments, making the top ten moments of my life.