Harper D. Mayes

Harper D. Mayes.  So those that know Harper, know that the D truthfully stands for Davison, but I'm beginning to think the D stands for Determined!  When given the right motivation...this kid is some kind of determined.  We noticed it most recently with football.  Our smart, funny, creative, non-athletic kid gave up going to get pizza for playing football...all for a bag of Skittles.  Had an asthma attack.....to get the bag of Skittles.

That same smart, funny, creative, non-athletic kid surprised us again this morning!  His amazingly brilliant teacher has a class challenge.  Whoever earns his/her reading goal first in the nine weeks, earns lunch of his/her choice. Ummmmm, did you catch that?  You earn F-O-O-D!  Last nine weeks, he tied with one other girl...so they both earned the lunch.  But, this time...Harper was in it to win it!  He came home yesterday telling us that this girl just needed one more point to earn her goal, but he was bound and determined not to let that happen.  With that, he read for one hour....reading, begging us to ask him questions to make sure he knew the books and would pass the tests, and asking us to read with him.  Finally, after an hour, he reluctantly went to bed.

Then, the strangest, craziest, most amazing thing happened.  I heard his bedroom door open this morning around 5:30am.  I listened as he went to the bathroom and then tiptoed into our room.  I lifted the covers and motioned for him to crawl in bed with us, to which he replied "No, mom, I want to get up and read, but could you help me get dressed quickly?"  Whaaaaaaa???  There's a difference between determination and just plain crazy!  It was 5:30 in the morning!  "Oh wow buddy.  That's awesome!  Daddy can help you get dressed."  So, at 5:30 in the morning, Chris dragged himself out of bed to help Harper get dressed quickly so he could finish reading.  

When the rest of us got up at 6:00, we found Harper sitting in the family room, reading quietly.  When Warren joined him for breakfast, we found Harper reading quietly as he ate his grits.  And this morning, as we received email after email that he had taken and passed all of his tests, we found Harper.....first one in his class to earn his reading goal!  

Crazy....yes!  Determined.....heck yes!