We  had a milestone yesterday. Sophie punctuated for the first time.

I’m so proud. I’m a big fan of punctuation (part of the whole Nerd Alert thing). I spend my days changing commas to dashes, debating the overuse of the parenthetical reference (I’m a big offender myself), putting writers on semi-colon diets and yelling at freelancers for not knowing the its/it’s rule.

I’m not saying I always use it properly myself, but I spend a lot of time thinking about punctuation. Thus, my excitement.

This week in kindergarten, the kids made a book devoted to the word “at.” You probably wouldn’t be able to tell, but I could decipher “I was at Disney on Ice” from one of Sophie’s pages. Each page has an accompanying drawing. Cute, and a good way to master sight words and the way they work. I still can’t believe that Sophie is able to write a sentence, even with assistance.

Yesterday, Ms. X reported that Sophie wrote, “I am at Gaga’s” then paused and turned ot Ms. X.

“I’m excited!” she announced, then drew an exclamation point at the end of the sentence.

“I put on an exciting mark!” she told Ms. X.

That’s what all the kindergarteners call it, Ms. X explained. “Exclamation” is an awfully big word for them.

“I’m so proud,” I said. “Her first punctuation!”

As a rule, I’m not a huge fan of the exclamation mark. (Something else I overuse and yell at others for abusing.)

But in this case, bring it on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!