My youngest little girls are growing up way too fast. M loves her Waldorf preschool so much she begs and begs to go more and more. But I don't want her to be away from me that much! I think 3 mornings a week as a 4 year old is enough prep for being gone 5 mornings as a kindergartener next year. On the bright side, at least she is at a place she adores! This seems to be a great environment for her sweet nature and for her to learn how to regularly interact with a certain group of individuals she hasn't known before now. Whenever someone asks her about where she goes, she is always certain to mention the animals and the garden too.
Who gave N permission to stop being a baby and start acting like a girl instead? Here is a picture of her all ready to go run errands with mommy yesterday. I put her shoes on for her and told her we were ready to get in the van and she grabbed K's purse & hat and started walking for the garage door. When it came time to strap her in the car seat (which she has gotten really tired of being rear facing lately) I had to bribe her with getting a sucker at the bank! And for the second time, she turned a lot of heads at the grocery store because when she was done with the bank sucker she wanted out of the cart and to help stack items in and push the cart with all her might. These two girls seriously make my heart hurt to see them grow so fast but I couldn't be happier or prouder of them either. Happy half birthdays, my darlings.
p.s. She knew something was fishy at her 18 mo. check up and cried and cried before she even got her vaccines. Poor thing. She is continuing on her trend to be tall and skinny like her daddy: 85th percentile for height & 28th for weight. Going fine along her curve so no worries.
I had the privilege and shock of attending two parent/teacher conferences back to back last Tuesday. I was shocked for a couple different reasons. First, Kaelah was VERY uncomfortable with the idea of me talking to her teacher. She kept asking me why & I kept responding they were asking all the moms or dads to come talk to the teachers. Why? Why? I couldn't satiate her. Luckily, when it came time for her conference, our neighbors, L & A, were were talking turns watching their children on the playground, so K & D played out there while I talked to Mrs. B. M was very interested to see K's classroom and meet her teacher. She did find it a bit boring & enjoyed the kindergarten classroom better. Not like I needed any proof to not have her skip a grade. lol. Mrs. B. is very kind and told me about how well K is doing. I was surprised to she K was on in the 85 percentile in reading comprehension until Dan and I sat down with the test at home after the children were in bed and realized the questions she missed were multiple choice opinion questions. Hello?!? How can an opinion be wrong unless it was totally off topic? We felt like they were ridiculous questions, which made me feel better about the score but made me seriously wonder about the kind of tests they are putting our children through in public school now-a-days. I am very grateful for how happy she seems to be this year. I think there are a lot of factors. Her little brother goes with her to school every day, she has had the kindergarten year as preparation, Mrs. B seems to be a great personality to mess with K's, and K just adores having lunch with friends and going to art, music, and pe. Perhaps she will like it even more next year with D gets picked up at the same time as her too. Two other major news events for Kaelah: she lost her first two teeth! She is very excited to join the crowd of friends her have already lost teeth. The news story already broke that the tooth fairy isn't real, but she requested to still get something, so I print out tooth fairy receipts and we leave her $2. She really likes the gold $1 coins Dan gets from the vending machines at work. She is saving up for a Kristoff doll. Second, she looooves swimming so much she asked to add a second swimming class. Although she was nervous going for the first time this week because it is a different teacher and students, she was thrilled! I love the fact that she is enjoying something so much and still finds it both challenging and rewarding. Usually, because she is so athletic and talented, she bores easily and doesn't stay in an activity for long. (Ex. piano lessons went out the door when swimming lessons entered the picture.) It is a joy to see her swim. People have already asked her if she wants to be in the Olympics. She responded by saying she didn't want that many people looking at her. (:
D's conference was in stark contrast to K's last year with the same teacher. I remember Mrs. C asking me last year about how K was doing at home and if she had more desire to come to school. She told me K seemed uncomfortable (that was my one question for Mrs. B this year & she said yes very enthusiastically) and how happy she was K was only in a half day class because she could tell K missed being at home with her baby sister. No mention of being uncomfortable with D! He's still having a hard time walking and waiting in line. He's still having a hard time being quiet during circle time. I still have to remind him to not play too rough at recess. Uggg. On the happy side, he is improving dramatically at reading, his writing has really progressed, and his math is perfect other than getting a little messed up with the teen numbers, which they haven't even gotten to yet. I was so proud of him and so concerned for him at the same time. I wish I knew what to do to help him with his behavior at school, but honestly I think a large part of said misbehavior is a combination of being super happy to be around a lot of boys at school and being one of the youngest (if not the youngest) child in the class. Seriously, everyone that he hangs around has already turned 6. He keeps asking me when he's going to have his 6th birthday and I keep saying not until school is over for the year. So sad. Luckily he is competitive and smart because he sure is keeping up academically because of it! Oh, I guess I should comment we have done one thing to try to help him behave better. At first when he was getting on yellow and red I felt like I needed to take him to karate more. We had been going less due to swimming lessons and I thought he did better at school when he went to karate 2 times per week. So, instead of having him go two times/week like he was doing before the private swimming lessons, once those were over, I started having him go to karate 3x/week. The result was he was going to karate on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday and going to swimming on Thursday. It was too much! The poor guy starting complaining and sometimes crying every time he had to go somewhere! Long story short, we are taking a break from karate unit after swim lessons are finished at Christmas time. This week he will take his belt test to go up to a yellow belt and then begin again in January and not take another swim lesson. All 3 of his sisters loooove their group swimming lessons but he would like to keep going with karate and do a soccer camp once in a while instead. We'll see what comes of activities in 2015. I'm going to have to learn how to say "no" more often to my children when they ask me to sign them up for things!
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