Can You Say MEG-uh-loe-SAWR-uhss?

Two weeks ago, Taylor was given the assignment to write a report, make a poster, and do a presentation for his 2nd grade class on a dinosaur called Megalosaurus. He was thrilled--about all the parts except for the presentation--which was very scary to him.

But, I took him to the library, and he found some great books and a picture encylopedia about his dinosaur and he got to work. It was so cute to see him sitting at one of those round library tables with his books spread out, scanning through the pages to find what he needed. He looked a little too grown up for 2nd grade. With his backpack on the table, and his coat slung over a chair and the look of concentration on his face...he reminded me a little of how Andy used to look when we'd study together at the ISU library.

We had a lot of fun on his poster. I let him use my stencils, his new markers, and I even let him use the rubber cement instead of glue sticks. (I think that was his favorite part...being upgraded from glue stick duty) He was pretty proud of it, and rightly so, when he was finished.

The night before he was to hand it in, he was having a difficult time going to sleep, so around 11:00 Andy and I got him back out of bed to let him run through it a couple more times with us. He did a great job, and those last few practice runs seemed to do the trick because he was finally able to fall asleep.

The next morning, I drove him to school while he carefully held his poster. I wished him luck and watched him disappear through the school doors. That was one of those moments when a mother just prays that all will go smoothly so as not to make the next time even more traumatic.

He got home from school that day and was so excited to show me his grading sheet. He had been given full marks in all the categories, and had said that it was actually fun to tell his classmates everything he had learned about the Megalosaurus. Hooray! Prayers answered. :)