Dear Teacher...

Once a week, our children attend morning-long classes in which they are tutored by wonderful, creative home-educating mothers who devote their time and energies to guiding a small group of homeschooled children through memory work and concepts to be studied over the coming week. I have been pleased with each child's tutor and with each child's enjoyment of his or her class, even if on this night especially, I feel the need to offer a few words of encouragement, explanation, and gratitude to one in particular...

Dear Tutor,

Please forgive yet another presentation on dragons. I know by now you must be weary of seeing that blue dragon notebook that my child brings to class every single week. I would be weary of seeing him carry it to class, but frankly, I'm stuck at being amazingly proud of his ability to keep track of the thing.

I tried to convince my dear child to do his presentation on something pertaining to our studies. He was, much to my delight, set on doing a presentation on Greek gods to go along with this week's history sentence. We even made a special trip to the library and checked out a veritable armload of mythology books. Whether or not the librarian was perplexed by our mix of books on Greek gods and books on the biblical account of the flood... who knows? The point is, we were all set for a presentation that involved research and actually related to the material covered in class.

But then the dragons attacked. Again.

Please bear with us.

You see, a few weeks ago, my child opened a fortune cookie. He read his fortune and smiled broadly.

"I'm going to be famous someday!"

"Really? What do you think you'll be famous for?"

"Probably my book."

"Maybe so..."

The blue dragon notebook and the accompanying paraphernalia are just the tip of the iceberg, dear Tutor. This kid has an entire world of dragons and aliens, heros and villains floating in his mind - and a paper trail winding through my house to prove it.

So when you see that blue dragon notebook - again - tomorrow morning, please understand the enormity of that seeming extension of my child's arm.

It's going to make him famous someday.

And you, dear Tutor, will be able to say...

"I knew him when..."