Where Everybody Knows Your Name

I came to a very cool realization today.  My children are known quantities at the local library and the locally owned book store.  Dominic and Sophia are familiar faces in places that bring both joy and knowledge.

It gives me great satisfaction to see my seven year old son greet members of his community with a smile, to see his ease at getting in line, alone, to ask a question.  My kiddos have no problem with asking questions.  (When I asked a question at a cooking demo this past weekend, my husband remarked, 'so that's where they get it from...')
I love that they feel that they own a voice within their community.  They have their own individual identity in the eyes of adults and kids alike. 

Both Dominic and Sophia have become friends in their own right with people at the book store and library.  Their friends, adults, know what book series the kids love, enough to recommend other books and authors.  Today, at the bookstore, Sophia struck up a conversation with a young girl about a favorite author.  To watch the ease with which these two girls, complete strangers, developed a rapport together, it really filled my heart.  Watching the ease of their social interactions is especially fufilling to me because I worried that our kids wouldn't be 'socialized' properly with our choice to homeschool.  Now I can just laugh at the ridiculousness of that...

A man approached Dominic at the library, or I should say he approached the top of Dom's head as it was buried in a book.  "You like reading?  I think it's boring."  The man, in his futile effort to be "cool" with a kid, obviously picked the wrong one.  No worries though, Dominic didn't hear him; he was too busy reading.