Is the month of March always this busy? It has come and gone in the blink of an eye. On the first of the month we got to celebrate Mary's first birthday since Natalie is just a month behind her in age and I feel like the entire month was a party. I invited people I visit teach over to celebrate Dr. Suess's birthday, the YW had a combined birthday party for the entire year, Kaelah began taking piano lessons, my mom and I took Danny and Michelle to Discovery Days more than once, we started trying to meet friends at the park but the weather didn't always cooperate, so Marie & Tanya brought their children to our new house for the first time and Dan took Kaelah skiing. Somehow we managed to fit in a trip to Ikea (to purchase porch furniture) and the zoo and the lake were Meigo can swim and sledding near by. We also managed to scare D & M by using food coloring to change the toilet water and the milk green on St. Patrick's Day. The idea that leprechauns snuck in the house undetected while they were sleeping scared them a ton! Curse you, fun holiday. (But I must say Natalie adored the toy leprechaun and teddy bear that went with the decorations. She would make her "I want that" noise & reach out her hand whenever we passed them on the mantel or anywhere else they were. It was quite precious.) Dan and I had our first date since November and went to see the Imagine Dragons on tour. Awesome!!!! That was on the same day as Michelle's birthday party and later we had a party for Meigo too, but I will put those in the next post. Danny and Michelle started playing on soccer teams. Now that's a riot.
I thought spring might be too iffy to sign up for outdoor soccer but Michelle insisted on giving it a go since she was about to turn 4 and Danny got to start playing soccer when he was four. Luckily my visiting teaching companion invited us to join the team she is coaching. She is also Michelle's Sunbeam teacher so Michelle would know 2 of the other boys on the team plus a little girl we had met at a gym class and become friends with last spring. These 3 & 4 year olds are so pitiful! They really are too young to have a clue how to control the ball or play the game or concentrate for more than a few minutes out there. Katie has had to come up with all sorts of tricks and games just to get some running and dribbling in. She is fantastic. On the other hand, Danny's 4s and 5s team is really good. They actually practice for an entire hour and play games like Wreck it Ralph (the boys' favorite). These boys get the game and have a lot of fun with it. The only thing we have to do is remind Danny that we don't tackle people unless he asks first and they say yes. Arg. And luckily for Danny, one of the boys from his primary class (who is my visiting teacher's son) is on the same team so we take turns car pooling them to practice.
Since I explained all that I should tell you more about why Kaelah is taking piano. Kaelah has liked playing with my mother's keyboard we have in the play room a lot. It was actually in her room at our old house. She has taught herself how to play Mary had a little lamb and the ABC song and I really thought it would be great to get her doing something on a regular basis. I thought she would enjoy it and do well at it but she didn't want me to sign her up for lessons. Well, turns out my other visiting teacher who is also K's primary teacher this year, teaches lessons to some of the other girls in the ward and lives super close to our house. Bingo! She is loving it and is great, which is good for her perfectionism and her confidence. My mom comes over about once a week to help her practice, which is great because I have nooooo idea. Middle C? What? Oh, and speaking of Kaelah, she has some great news we received on the very last day of the month! She doesn't have to wear her eye patch any more! Woo hoo! First she had to patch 2 hours/day, then 1 hour/day, then half and hour and now we are free. I am so grateful that the patching made her eye stronger and did not regress. We will go back again in June to double check and have her annual eye exam. The only down side is that her eyes aren't tracking correctly so the Dr. recommended vision therapy. I said now is not the time. I didn't tell her, but we did begin seeing a new therapist regarding K's attachment disorder. Can I just say in only 3 visits we have seen a difference? And Kaelah doesn't seem to mind going to kindergarten as much anymore. Hooray! She has even been early a few days toward the end of March. Amazing. Want to know what our first bit of homework was that is making a change? Snuggles. Kaelah won't hug me very often -- she usually recoils if I try to hug her and doesn't offer me one unless she is super duper excited, which isn't a daily or even weekly thing. So our homework was to hug. That wasn't going anyway and assuming the goal was to get positive physical contact, I offered to let K watch tv if I got to snuggle with her. Eureka. For 20 minutes I sat down next to my children to watch something instead of do the dishes like I usually do when the baby is napping. My husband came home to a messy kitchen and VERY happy children. I had K on one side, then D joined me on the other side, and then M eventually sat on my lap in the middle. If any of you know me, we aren't the type of family to watch a lot of tv and if I do let my kids watch it usually has a purpose -- to let me get something done. So, I did my homework in a way that worked for Kaelah. I must add the therapist was very impressed. (:
I thought spring might be too iffy to sign up for outdoor soccer but Michelle insisted on giving it a go since she was about to turn 4 and Danny got to start playing soccer when he was four. Luckily my visiting teaching companion invited us to join the team she is coaching. She is also Michelle's Sunbeam teacher so Michelle would know 2 of the other boys on the team plus a little girl we had met at a gym class and become friends with last spring. These 3 & 4 year olds are so pitiful! They really are too young to have a clue how to control the ball or play the game or concentrate for more than a few minutes out there. Katie has had to come up with all sorts of tricks and games just to get some running and dribbling in. She is fantastic. On the other hand, Danny's 4s and 5s team is really good. They actually practice for an entire hour and play games like Wreck it Ralph (the boys' favorite). These boys get the game and have a lot of fun with it. The only thing we have to do is remind Danny that we don't tackle people unless he asks first and they say yes. Arg. And luckily for Danny, one of the boys from his primary class (who is my visiting teacher's son) is on the same team so we take turns car pooling them to practice.
Since I explained all that I should tell you more about why Kaelah is taking piano. Kaelah has liked playing with my mother's keyboard we have in the play room a lot. It was actually in her room at our old house. She has taught herself how to play Mary had a little lamb and the ABC song and I really thought it would be great to get her doing something on a regular basis. I thought she would enjoy it and do well at it but she didn't want me to sign her up for lessons. Well, turns out my other visiting teacher who is also K's primary teacher this year, teaches lessons to some of the other girls in the ward and lives super close to our house. Bingo! She is loving it and is great, which is good for her perfectionism and her confidence. My mom comes over about once a week to help her practice, which is great because I have nooooo idea. Middle C? What? Oh, and speaking of Kaelah, she has some great news we received on the very last day of the month! She doesn't have to wear her eye patch any more! Woo hoo! First she had to patch 2 hours/day, then 1 hour/day, then half and hour and now we are free. I am so grateful that the patching made her eye stronger and did not regress. We will go back again in June to double check and have her annual eye exam. The only down side is that her eyes aren't tracking correctly so the Dr. recommended vision therapy. I said now is not the time. I didn't tell her, but we did begin seeing a new therapist regarding K's attachment disorder. Can I just say in only 3 visits we have seen a difference? And Kaelah doesn't seem to mind going to kindergarten as much anymore. Hooray! She has even been early a few days toward the end of March. Amazing. Want to know what our first bit of homework was that is making a change? Snuggles. Kaelah won't hug me very often -- she usually recoils if I try to hug her and doesn't offer me one unless she is super duper excited, which isn't a daily or even weekly thing. So our homework was to hug. That wasn't going anyway and assuming the goal was to get positive physical contact, I offered to let K watch tv if I got to snuggle with her. Eureka. For 20 minutes I sat down next to my children to watch something instead of do the dishes like I usually do when the baby is napping. My husband came home to a messy kitchen and VERY happy children. I had K on one side, then D joined me on the other side, and then M eventually sat on my lap in the middle. If any of you know me, we aren't the type of family to watch a lot of tv and if I do let my kids watch it usually has a purpose -- to let me get something done. So, I did my homework in a way that worked for Kaelah. I must add the therapist was very impressed. (:
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