Merit award

My youngest got her very first merit award at school today. It wasn't for being a good learner. It wasn't for friendliness to her classmates. It wasn't for good manners, neatness or her sense of humour. It was for 'her continued efforts to conquer the monkeybars'. Now there's one to keep and read out at her twenty-first.

Of course, what it was really about was persistence, something she has in oodles. Being so much smaller than her classmates and the youngest in her class as well, she often watches her friends doing things that she is just not big enough to do. But she never uses that as an excuse and she tries anyway. When she was two, it was climbing up the slide the hard way - because that's what her brother did. Last year it was the hoola hoop. This year it's the monkeybars. As the teacher added on the certificate -'Your persistence will take you to the sky'. That's my girl.

Now she needs to teach her mum how to persist with her writing until she gets that book published. Just one... more... swing... and I might... make it... to the next... bar.