We have two weeks of school under our belt! Yippeeeeee. We took yesteday off, as the girls spent most of the day with their dad (my ex-husband), and then we had a neighborhood cookout! It was great fun. Today we're going to work on our "social skills" and our gross motor development! (We're going to the park.) My girls, as you have all read me whine about before, haven't been able to spend as much time with their friends in the last 18 months as they are used to (I was sick a big chunk of my pregnancy, and then their brother took forever to get on a decent routine that allowed us to venture out of the house.), so I am giving them another day off to just enjoy some friends. I'll have them read a book, and count some stuff too, then we can call it a REAL school day. :-)
Speaking of routine, I'm so happy we finally have one again. And, now, having put that out there for all the world to see, my son-being the child that he is-will quickly destroy said routine. I am, by nature, a VERY scheduled person. It's just the way my brain works best. This child was obviously sent by the universe to teach me to let go. He has blown any semblance of routine out the window since his arrival almost 8 months ago! But, finally, in the last 3 weeks...he's starting to give me just a LITTLE bit of normalcy.
The best part...he's mobile. Completley. He can get to ANYTHING he really wants (mostly dog toys and the wood pile). He crawls, though not on all fours, it's an all out on the belly army crawl, but he can pull up and cruise along any surface (even a moving one...bugger). He also really loves his sisters school books. That's a sign that he's incredibly eager to learn right? (Listen, don't crush my hopes here, just smile and nod.) We're working on signing with him, and he currently recognizes 3 signs (the 3 most important to his universe!)-milk, eat-we use that one for solids, and bed. He can't do them yet...or at least I haven't figured out what his version is yet....but he defineatly recognizes and will respond to them in a "Oh thank heavens you have finally figured it out!" sort of way. I thought he was doing his own version of milk for awhile, but that turned out to be a fluke I suppose, he again, was only toying with me.
Here is a great site to look up signs:
http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi (you can click on the page specifically for baby signs as well).
We are now working on More/Again, Wash, Ball, Book and Water!
Ohhh, I should also let you all know that my oldest DD has decided to quit school. Why you ask? Because I told her that 4th graders HAVE TO WRITE IN CURSIVE. :-) So, she told me that she would HAVE TO QUIT THEN. LOL She knows all of the cursive letters, upper and lower case, but for some reason doesn't use them in her school work....now I've seen her write full pages in her journals of cursive....so I guess it's mostly that I ASKED her to. Why is this a big deal you ask? Because her print handwriting is atrocious, and huge. But, her cursive handwriting is appropriate size and easy to read. So...I made the silly request that she do ALL her school work in cursive, when she protested I informed her that 4th graders write in cursive (ok, I do NOT know this to be true...in fact I think here locally they've phased out cursive altogether because who needs to know how to WRITE anymore! SHEESH-can you tell this gets me???). Maybe if I asked her to print everything like a kindergartner I get beautifully, cursive written assignments everyday. Sigh.
I'm working on getting several projects ready for our Girl Scout troop. I will again be the Daisy leader, these girls are so great! I'm preparing some really cute stuff, and I'm so excited for the year to begin. We had a get-together kick off last Friday, and it was nice to get to see some of the new girls I'll have this year. I only have one "returning" Daisy. Daisies is a one-year program typically, but our troop lets in girls a little on the young side, and they do it in two years (we can make our own rules!). We're going to participate in the "Flat Daisy" program this year, where you have a flat Juliette Gordon Low (nicknamed Daisy) that you take with you to outings etc. and you email letters back and forth with other Daisy troops about her adventures! I think the girls will like it.
I guess that's it...I need to get snacks packed for the park so I have some time to clean before we go...when babies crawl, you have to vacuum (darn-it!).
