I’ve been such a downer lately, I thought I’d share some good news. Nothing major — and goodness knows tonight everything could go to hell in a homework handbasket — so I’ll tell you this now.

Sophie had a spelling break-thru (is that how you spell that?) last night. At least, it felt like that. We had a long talk with the special ed attorney about spelling last week. Sophie struggles with a long list with big words each week, the list the rest of the class gets. It’s much too hard for her, and even shaving a few off was feeling tough, so we asked for a separate list. I showed one of those to the attorney, who was not pleased. She pointed out that the words were much too easy for Sophie — and she’s right.

The truth is that the real challenge for Sophie is handwriting. And she’s not quite ready to pound the words out on the computer (and I’m not sure that accomodation is always made, in any case). So the teacher and I made a deal that I’d pick a few words for Sophie to work with each week. This week’s words: broom, boot, moon, spoon, food and cartoon. Then I began casting about for ways to practice.

“Write the words in shaving cream,” the attorney suggested. I pictured shaving cream from floor to ceiling, and rejected that, but came up with my own idea: Play-Doh.

Worked like a charm, and this morning, when I asked her, Sophie spelled every word (except cartoon) with ease, making me realize that maybe she should take the tests orally. I’ll ask the teacher about that.

The real touchy-feely moment of the evening came after spelling, when Sophie went to her room and chose a book for her reading homework. “Bread and Jam for Frances,” my absolute favorite. I’m not going to tell you she sat down and read the whole thing cover to cover, but she could have if she’d had the stamina. That kid can read. We took turns and ultimately decided to save the second half for tonight. Yay.

(P.S. And yes, RobertPolk, I do see how she’s holding her head, and just today I got a referral for a new eye doctor.)