One of the things we stressed to Chloe before I returned to work was that she would be on her own to do her homework during the week. Of course, we would review her exercises when we got home, but she’d have to complete as much as possible in the afternoon hours.

My husband and I had our doubts. She’s a 7-year old girl, and if she ever listens to us the first go-round whenever we ask her to do something, for a split second we believe that miracles really happen. But as soon as we start to see a little halo floating above her head, we have to repeat ourselves at least five times when we make our next request.

Needless to say, over the course of several days, we gently reminded her of the new rules.

When I came home from work the first day, things were a bit disorganized, to say the least. But it wasn’t really Chloe’s fault. On the second day, her finished homework was waiting for us when we got home. And she did it well, too. On the third day, she used her assigned vocabulary words to write fantastic, creative sentences in her spelling journal. She even did research -verifying how to spell “chocolate” by looking at the package of Oreos in the closet. She did an equally impressive job tonight.

There’s no way of knowing how long Chloe will keep this up. But I’ll enjoy my small miracle while it lasts.