March Madness

I suppose if I updated this more than once a month, it wouldn't be such a chore when I finally do, and end up as such a random spewing of facts. :)

Clara has changed SO much these past few weeks!  It's like, now that she is mobile, she's working on other things.  She did a really, really super job this past week going potty, which is absolutely crazy but pretty fun!  She totally gets it, and seemed really upset when she did poop in her diaper after not having done that for ~5 days.  I was washing diapers myself this week since we were out of town on pick-up day, so it definitely helped in that chore. :)  I think the limiting factor for her is the personnel, since it seems that if anyone except me takes her she gets a little freaked.  Which - so what?  She's a BABY.  She's always in a diaper, so what's the big deal?  So I've decided to cooperate with her preference and be the only one taking her potty.  Anyone else who happens to change her can just change her like they would any normal baby, and we should all be happy!

Another totally fantastic thing is that she has figured out how to user her fingers to communicate.  It's such a big "click" in her mind! so fun!  We've been working on her to make the sign for "milk," although it's water in her sippy cup so we're calling it just "drink."  I think she has interpreted it to mean, "Gimme," however, as she uses it as her response to just about any question you ask her. :)  The next most helpful sign she could learn is "all done," then "more," and maybe "potty" someday but again, whatever.  Anyway, the little fingers going back and forth are tremendously cute and I am loving it!!

Travis was in Brazil all last week, and he said he thinks Clara has developed a whole bunch of personality while he was gone.  I have to agree.  She is getting more and more expressive, just trying different emotions on for size.  I think she likes the acoustics of our dining room, because she has resumed her shrieking now that we're home from Rockford, where we hid out for the week.  I swear she didn't shriek at all last week, but tonight she was at it again. 

So yes, the trip to Rockford.  it was really fun and really exhausting, totally worth it but still a big chore.  It was ridiculously cold outside, and Clara was her normal miserable sleeper so I'm exhausted, but there were many high points, too.  I was able to arrange special 1 on 1 time for each girl with each grandparent throughout the week, which was a really nice thing for all involved.  My mom read a huge stack of books to the girls throughout the week (she swears that Emily didn't have her fingers in her mouth at any time she was reading to her, but this afternoon I didn't even get through the first page of a book and she was chewing on the back of her hands).  Anyway, my mom also got a kick out of Clara putting empty buckets and toy containers over her head, then talking to sample the acoustics.  It was quite the game for such a little person!  It was fun to see Clara get more comfortable at their house as the week went on.  She spent probably half of her playtime standing up at the piano, trying out the keys.  She loooooved the piano.  One time, I had her on my lap, playing a few notes here and there as she was playing too, and she repeatedly took my hands off the keyboard, and then finally turned around and pushed my face away, as if to say, "Mom!  Leave me alone! I am playing!"  My dad said she did just the same thing to him, too!  Funny kid!

Audrey has been a little charmer lately.  It seems like my kids each take turns doing fits and spurts of amazing development.  The past month hasn't really been notable for her, which is nice because her stages of real change are usually pretty hard to handle.  She's happy, singing, snuggly and beautiful, learning like crazy about whatever comes her way, and just enjoying being 3. She colored a picture of a rainbow, for St. Patrick's Day, and we're not sure how she figured this out, but she put exactly the right colors in the right order.  There wasn't any rainbow for her to copy (and that's not her style anyway), and when I asked her how she decided which color to put where, she told me she started with red, and that orange belonged next to it, and yellow belong next to orange... I'm not sure that's what preschool teachers mean when they work on kids knowing their colors!

Emily had a lot of shining moments up in Rockford.  She was thoughtful and considerate of her sisters and her grandparents.  She told amazingly detailed facts about dinosaurs and rockets that she learned in school.  she did puzzles and sequencing activities, showcased her amazing scissor skills (practically scherenschnitte!), and even tried out new ways to poke around on the piano.  And she played happily with her sisters, which while it wasn't tear-free 100% of the time, it really was far beyond what kids that age generally are able to work out on their own.  My mom taught preschool for many years, so of course has a good idea what it takes for a child to be considered Kindergarten-ready.  Emily's teacher of course recommended that she's ready for Kindergarten, no surprise there, but there are a lot of things that even Audrey fits the criteria for K-readiness. Emily is so far beyond it, I wonder if she's going to feel like Kindergarten is a good fit.  I have not drilled her with academic readiness; teachers look for things like straight-up reading skills (sight words), ability to count by 2's or by 5's, and other similar repeat-this-task skills for goals for the Kindergarten year.  I think Emily will enjoy learning these things at school... and then wonder what to do the rest of the year.  I could teach her these things over the summer, if I really wanted to pursue grade acceleration as an option, and she would then probably stand out as a good candidate. I'm really not leaning that way for her; her inclination is to focus on getting a handle on her situation before making her move. Emily's teacher commented at conferences that she started the year very timid, taking her time analyzing her surroundings, and now that she's comfortable she kind of rules the place, with great confidence and lots of friends.  I think throwing her into 1st grade would be too much of a change for her to feel confident that she's totally in-the-know of her surroundings.  She COULD do it, and be totally fine academically, but I don't think that emotionally it's a good fit for her.  The challenge then is to keep her academically interested within her grade level, which I'm realizing is something that I'll need to advocate for her quite a bit and I am not at all sure how to do it.  I sure hate using my first kid as my guinea pig.  Maybe I'll have things figured out for Audrey, but she's a different story entirely.  I've got a while before I really have to think about school for her, but she is so ready to jump into anything, and so academically ready because of her exposure to things via Emily's learning, that moving up might really suit her... we shall see. 

Anyway, regarding Emily, it was good to talk with my mom and learn more about what 5YO expectations really are, because Emily is truly a fantastic kid; she only drives me crazy because I'm her mother, and that's her job.  In the real world, she shines.  Her A-game is amazing.  At home she relaxes and it's not convenient for me, but that's not her fault and it's not wrong, at all.  Today was really hard, with the letdown of being home again and the added exhaustion, and the headache that I had too.  We definitely had a hard day.  But I guess it's just Emily's turn to be the kid that's driving me nuts, right??   The biggest thing lately: Emily absolutely cannot leave Clara alone.  Now that she's pulling herself to standing on things, Emily thinks she needs to come up behind her, lift her up, and carry her wherever she wants her.  Then if Clara is then crying because she's been moved away from what she wants to be doing, then Emily cradles her on her lap and tries to get her to stop.  Well, she's really way too big to do that, almost 20 pounds now!  Emily even managed to get Clara her out of her crib this morning, before I was even out of bed! (Give me a chance, kid!!)  I have talked with her, seriously, every single day this week about how she could hurt Clara by accident, and I don't want either of my girls to get hurt, or for Emily to feel bad about hurting Clara when she didn't mean to.  She absolutely will not stop and it is driving me crazy!!!  Add that to the constant fingers/hands/toys/plates/countertops/random-object-at-face-level in her mouth, AND her insistence on starting everything she says to me by whining, "Mooooommm??  How come (something she already knows but wants me to repeat for some damn reason)??"  Yup, definitely Emily's turn to be the irritant.

Travis is also gone in April for a trip to Luxembourg.  It's a little shorter this time - 5 days instead of 7 - but I'm still planning to get backup help somehow.  I don't think I'll be able to skip town again, since Emily is in school, but maybe I'll take vacation... we'll see. It's really disappointing to have to look forward to that, and also a 2-day trip to Miami at the beginning of April, because once I get through those things, we'll be almost to the end of the schoolyear, getting ready for summer!  If the snow would just melt already, and quit coming down, I think I'd be more ready to think about it!