I had Chloe’s parent-teacher conference today. I arrived feeling a little bit nervous – confident that I would hear mostly good things, but anticipating some critical commentary about her talkative nature.

The meeting was surprising in many respects. Not so surprising was the one negative: the tendency to talk up a storm. But Chloe’s teacher even managed to spin that in a positive light – at least when she talks to her peers, it’s usually about assignments the children are working on.

The surprising feedback was plentiful and pleasing. Most surprising of all, however, is that my Chloe (note how she is my Chloe for this blog entry. Sometimes, she’s her father’s Chloe. That’s when she misbehaves) is a budding writer. Given my own love for the written word, perhaps it’s really not so surprising. But then the teacher shared Chloe’s journal with me.

She writes and writes. Stories. The teacher provides the children with sentences to complete in their own words. But Chloe takes it a step further. Often, she’ll add several sentences to complete her story. And often, the teacher reads Chloe’s journal entries to the class. Some of them contain dialogue. Some of them are seven pages long. I was amazed.

I knew that she enjoyed books and even this blog. But I finally had confirmation, from an objective party, that we’ve instilled in Chloe a love for reading and writing. Wow. My Chloe. My writer. My future bestselling author. It was truly a thrilling moment. And I’m still bursting with pride.