Finally, I got something I wanted.

Way back, I had Mrs. Simpson for first grade. She was okay, I guess; I don't remember any particular traumas. She didn't make me read We Feed a Deer more than once, if at all. I remember being curious about it, though.

Another thing I was curious about was this set of... blocks. We got to play with them once, maybe. Must have because I remembered their value. Long orange ones were ten, little white ones were, well, one. The red ones were three and black were two. I think the green ones, four. I contented myself with my brother's Legos, but more than once I looked at that box of bright colored wooden objects on the shelf at school and sighed.

What on God's green earth am I talking about? Cuisenaire rods, of course.

When I saw them in the Kolbe catalog, that may have been the moment I fell in love. With homeschooling, with Kolbe, with teaching my kids. With the idea I might enjoy teaching math, of all things.

We didn't get them for Madeleine, though. We put them off. Maybe we can get by without them, we said. Maybe we don't need them.

Finally, with the enrollment of Dale in kindergarten, we got them. The puzzle book to go with them, too. And I am happy.