1) Sweet Pea's school picture is SO COMPLETELY ADORABLE!
2) Last night Sweet Pea had to sleep in the guest room with nobody snuggling her to sleep, etc. I know this is not a good thing, but earlier in the day when she didn't beat the timer getting dressed I had told her she would have to sleep in a different room by herself that night so I had to stick with the prescribed punishment. Even though it was something I shouldn't have used as a punishment because it's something I do want her to learn to do ANYway, as a growing kid. I thought she was going to beat the timer. And I couldn't think of a better idea at the moment that I uttered what the punishment would be.
ANYway, this morning after she woke up, Sweet Pea bounded into our room and happily proclaimed, "that was fun! I like sleeping by myself in my own high bed (the guest bed is on a frame; the kid bed in our room is not) in a different room!"
WOW! That was cool. The girls currently sleep together on a full sized mattress on the master bedroom floor (although The Bug wakes up almost every night and climbs into the "big bed" with Slipshod and me) and while I actually like having the kids in our room, I do hope that some day they will both want to move out and into their own room. All the things I read about co-sleeping when Sweet Pea was a baby said that if kids are allowed to sleep in a family bed they will ask to move out of the bed and out of the room when they're ready, which they say usually happens between... oh, now I can't remember the ages. But 5 is about right, so there you go! It really does work!
Of course, we don't have a bed frame for Sweet Pea and she also wants to sleep alone, not with her sister anymore, so we've got a little shopping and a lot of rearranging to do, but this is exciting! I don't know if The Bug will want to move to a different room with her sister, but it doesn't matter. Since Sweet Pea is ready for her own bed we'll get another twin sized bed for The Bug and put it in whichever room she wants to sleep in. My feeling is that she will want to keep her bed in the master bedroom but she is missing her sister from their bed (Sweet Pea is sleeping in the guest room alone again tonight) so who knows, maybe she will want to move rooms too! We shall see.
3) In case I haven't been reporting this well enough, which I probably haven't, Sweet Pea's reading skills seem to be increasing daily. She is one motivated learning reader and is really really enjoying her successes. We do read with our kids every day, and work with Sweet Pea to teach her to read, but she is so interested in learning right now that we have found other ways to encourage her to keep learning even when we can't sit with her ourselves.Since watching a number of episodes of The Electric Company (yeah, Netflix!) she completely understands the concept of the silent E and while she doesn't know yet which words have a silent E and which don't, if she is struggling to say a word and I tell her "silent E," she can immediately say it; she knows exactly what each vowel should sound like in that situation. I think it's really cool how easily she learned that and how well she knows the vowels' different sounds. The Electric company has also taught Sweet Pea how to read words with 's or 've or 'd, etc. at the end. She doesn't yet fully understand possessive uses of apostrophes, but she totally gets that "doesn't" is a contraction of the words "does not." It is incredible how easily she picks up some of this language stuff!
She's also at that really fun stage where she wants to read everything she sees. While we drive she reads words on trucks, buildings, you name it. When we walk on sidewalks she wants to read every street sign we pass. Oh, and she enjoys reading license plates as well, even though most of them are only a jumble of numbers and letters.
After your child has been playing with the pen & books for a while you can hook the pen up to your computer (it comes with a USB cable) and sign into your account on Leapfrog's website and you can see what skills your child is learning by playing with the pen/books. Sweet Pea loves to show us what the pen & book can do together and when she plays with them we can hear what she's working on and learning - she's already learning about compound words (among other things) through the Ozzie Otter book.
Honestly Slipshod and I were a little skeptical at first about how much Sweet Pea could learn from a computerized pen but she really enjoys playing with the Tag system by herself sometimes and later that night she'll read us a book before bedtime! She is so interested in learning to read right now that she is soaking up every related activity she can get her hands on.
Now The Bug is pretending she can read as well. She will point to words, one at a time in order, and say something completely different - unless what she's pointing at is a book she's got memorized, in which case she's spot on. ha ha!
And now on to more immediate ponderings...
Tonight I should be doing things, but I just want to sit here. Mom is coming over tomorrow to play with the kids while I make soap, so I really need to make sure I've got all my ingredients and gear in one place, but man, when do I get a day off? I just want to rest for a while!
On Friday we have our first parent-teacher conference of the year. Sweet Pea's progress report was positively glowing. Being a returning student has given her a lot of confidence and she is branching out this year and being more social and speaking more audibly (last year she was so shy nobody could hear her when she spoke at school). She loves being at school and even though she has already been sick a couple times, she has only missed one day of school, I think.
The worst days of these colds have been on weekends so far, and I'm also sending her back sooner this time. Last year I think I may have kept her home longer than necessary - or maybe this year I'm sending her back too soon - but I'm sending her when she's got her energy and hasn't had a fever for 24+ hours, etc. It's all good. I'm hoping for a better winter but it looks like she will probably get the diagnosis this winter of mild asthma. The last pediatrician we saw (last week - not her doctor - we had to see whoever had an open appointment that morning) pretty much said it sounds like she's mildly asthmatic.
Right now we're treating Sweet Pea for a very bad ear infection (the pediatrician said that it was so bad her eardrum might break but I don't think it did - but her hearing is still not back to normal) AND she's got a whole bunch of stuff in her lungs. The pediatrician said it sounded "bronchitis-like." She is still coughing up stuff a couple times per day but she only missed school last Friday. I think we've still got 5 days' worth of antibiotics to give her.
Wow, that last paragraph sounded like Sweet Pea is in awful shape, but she isn't. She was miserable last Friday - the ear infection hit her around 4am Friday morning and we couldn't get her to the doctor until 9:15 - but since then, even though she had a bit of a fever Saturday afternoon, she has had lots of energy and is acting like her regular self.
Okay I'd better go wake up Slipshod. He must have fallen asleep getting The Bug to bed. A very long time ago.
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