First, I have to say "welcome!" to my friend Jenn who has started her own blog--yea! I'm begging all of my friends to start one--even if you only write once a week. It's a great way to keep up with each other and for me to continue to procrastinate everything else I should be doing.

NOW, for a little brag session...you know me, you know that I don't go on and on about how wonderful, brilliant, gorgeous, and talented my children are. Even though that is all true, I don't get much in the way of hard evidence to share with all of you. More often than not, the little fumbles we go through are much funnier than the successes. And more plentiful. However, I have to say I am shocked, stunned, and seriously filled with motherly pride from today's event.

This morning we were getting ready to head out the door, and Cameron looked at my shirt and said, "Guh, Ah, Puh" and then continued with "athletics" but I'll spare you the phonics version. I recently discovered that he not only recognizes all the letters of the alphabet, but he also knows the sounds each makes! Great, but today he actually sounded out Gap. HE'S THREE!! Being a teacher and a book lover, obviously I am overjoyed.

Now the funny: I never taught him a thing. Sure, we sing "ABC's" and read books before bed, but I'm a big believer in age appropriate learning and well, I think three is too early for most kids to read. Leave it to my kid to do the opposite. (Granted, he's not actually reading yet, but he's well on his way.) So, how did he learn all of this you ask? The dreaded TV. Yep, you got it folks--TV actually can be educational.

It's no secret--I love TV. At one point, I felt like I was watching too much and wasting my life away and decided to only watch shows that teach me something. Then I had to justify Grey's Anatomy, Notes from the Underbelly, and ER as teaching me social skills and relationship building...well, whatever. DVR rocks my world and now I have something that I want to watch when I am folding laundry rather than whatever crap is on daytime.

Enough about me, this is about my brilliant son. So, I shared this in my "check this out" section a couple weeks ago, but in case you missed it: Kids: To TV or Not TV? And here's what I think helped Cameron. Now that we live about 1/2 hour from civilization, I ask for a little peace in the car and occasionally turn on the DVD player. One movie that we keep in the van is Leapfrog's Letter Factory. It was a gift from my in laws and even though it's Canadian and pronounces "z" as zed, I like it. After realizing Cameron was actually learning from this video, we purchased Word Factory and Math Circus (you know, so he's not only reading, but also computing formulas) Cameron has always loved Baby Einstein and Little Einsteins, Dora and Diego, or anything on PBS. No, I don't plop my children in front of the TV for hours on end. If we happen to catch any of those shows at the right times then I might turn it on. It's not on a daily basis or any regular schedule--and I don't leave the TV running all day long. That's a personal preference; I have never been one to like "background" noise. If there is a show that I want them to see, I will DVR it and turn it on when I need a half hour to cook dinner or whatever. Especially recently, our favorites are Word World and Super Why on PBS. There are other shows that encourage reading skills, but these are the ones my kids like at the moment.

Hey, I'm not saying that any of this will make your kid read or that I feel every kid should watch TV. Kaela really isn't all that into TV, no problem. I'm just saying that my kid has given me a reason to shout from the roof tops, so I'm gonna. :)