Spring Fever

Spring is definitely here and we are very excited!  Andy went golfing yesterday and the kids and I went to the park with a friend of mine and her daughter.  My friend moved to Illinois from California so we were joking that yesterday's spring day was like a winter day in Arizona and California, but we weren't complaining too much.  The kids had a lot of fun and then played in the backyard after their naps.  They played outside today for several hours too.

straight from their bikes to the playset

This morning, the kids got dressed (for the record, they picked out their own clothes) and decided to play pirates. I asked Drew why he didn't wear the eye patch over his eye and he said it was because he couldn't see when it was over his eye. :-)

Andy has been hard at work in our basement when he has the time. Between work, owning the bar and everything we have going on at home, he doesn't have a lot of time left for the basement. He usually heads down there around 9:30pm or 10pm each night. The poor guy barely sleeps. I took Kayley to gymnastics last week and he wanted to paint so he brought Drew down to "help" and Drew loved it!  Andy told him that was the only time he was allowed to paint on our walls.  Someone should tell Kayley that...I found two walls in the playroom colored by her this week.

Homeschooling (or teaching for that matter) is NOT for me!

I have a whole new respect for teachers.  I come from a family full of teachers and always admired them for devoting their lives to help children grow into productive adults, but I never really thought about whether it would be that hard to teach.  I recently learned that I am not a good teacher.  It is HARD! 

Kayley's teachers had mentioned that she could use a little extra work on her shapes and letters so I bought her another preschool workbook.  We tried before, but she had zero interest.  I thought we would try again now that she is a little older.  Drew really wanted one too so we got him the kindergarten one.

Kayley was very excited when I brought home the preschool workbook and she wanted to do it right away.  Good sign, I thought!  We started with tracing lines.  Most of the time she used her right hand, but sometimes she used her left hand.  I also had to help her hold the pen correctly, but she seemed to pick up on that pretty quickly.

Then we moved on to shapes.  I don't know exactly where a 3 1/2 year old should be with shapes, but Kayley definitely struggles with rectangle, triangle and sometimes diamond. Anytime she doesn't know what a shape is, her guess is octagon.  I told her that there were not any octagons on the page.  She clearly knew circle, oval and square.  She seemed to get diamond pretty quickly after we started.  We focused most of our time on rectangle and triangle and when I was convinced she had it down, we started from the top of the page with circle.  She got circle, square, oval, diamond and looked at the triangle and hesitated and then said octagon.  Ughh.  We had just spent over 10 minutes on triangle and rectangle!  I told her there are no octagons on the page and to try again and then she giggled and said, "I don't know!" with a big smile on her face.  I told her triangle and then she said, "oh yeah!"  Then I pointed to the rectangle and she said octagon.  I smiled, trying to hide my complete frustration, and just told her no and repeated that there were no octagons on the page and to try again.  Then she said, "I don't know!" and ran off to play with her babies. 

After 15 minutes with her, I was so frustrated!  All I could think was, "How do you not get this?  Shapes are easy!"  Clearly, I am a terrible teacher!  I didn't let her know I was frustrated, but I was secretly relieved when she ran off to play with her babies so I could take a break!  I have very little patience and that isn't a good quality for a mom of young children!  And we haven't even started on letters, which she also struggles with.

I am not overly concerned and I don't think Kayley is way behind the other kids in her class at this point, but the question of whether she would have learning disabilities has been there since the day she was born because of her premature birth.  A lot of people think I worry too much, and I probably do, but I want to catch it early if she is having trouble so we can give her as much help as she needs.  And if she needs that help, maybe Andy will be a better teacher!  In the meantime, I will happily play babies with her.  Together, we can feed four babies, burp them and get them to sleep in no time!

Hard at work tracing a circle

Also hard at work.

I walked into the living room yesterday to find
Drew tutoring Kayley on her shapes.  She doesn't
seem too interested in Drew's teaching either.

"New" Toys

Drew saw me typing on my laptop a few days ago and asked if he could type.  I opened up a new document for him and he has been hooked ever since.  He asks us several times a day to type.  He types his full name, Kayley's full name, my full name, Andy's full name, our ages, etc.  He recently learned our address at preschool so he liked to type that for awhile too.  He seems to be getting a little bored with typing our names and address so he decided to type every number up to 1000 today.  He is currently at 205.  He asked how much longer to 1000 and I told him he had a long way to go so he decided to rest awhile and come back and finish later! 

Kayley saw Drew typing and wanted to type as well.  I got out our really old laptop and opened up a document for her to type in.  She can type her name, but that is about the extent of her interest.  The rest of the time she just hits any and every key and comes over to me every 2 minutes to fix whatever she has done.  On her 15th trip or so over to me, Andy made a comment about how annoying it can be when someone doesn't know how to do some of the basics on the computer (referring to me and me having to ask him for help often!).

They have a playroom full of toys, but this weekend it has been all about typing on some pretty old laptops.  They have had a lot of fun with it and Kayley even learned our address from listening to Drew recite it over and over and over again as he typed it over and over and over again!  She came up to me this afternoon and asked if I wanted to hear her say something and I said yes.  She then recited our entire address.  It was cute and she was SO proud of herself! 

I had to include the picture of Kayley below too.  We spent a LONG time organizing their playroom last weekend and I am determined to keep it that way.  The new rule (always been the rule, but never enforced until now) is that they have to put their toy away before getting a new one out to play with.  I asked her to put one toy away because she started playing with something else.  She immediately dropped to the floor in dramatic fashion and told me she couldn't because her legs hurt.  "I can't.  My legs hurt" is her new expression anytime she doesn't want to do something.  "Kayley, why aren't you eating your dinner?"  "Mommy, I can't.  My legs hurt."  "Kayley, please put your shoes away."  "I can't.  My legs hurt."  If we ask Drew to do something, he does it.  Is it because she is a girl or because she is the baby of the family?

She is at it Again!

Kayley is back to her stylist ways.  The good news is she doesn't have scissors.  The other day I walked into the living room to see Andy in Kayley's salon.  She was combing his hair with her brush.  She said he didn't need a haircut.  Whew! 

Meanwhile, Andy has his own styling fun with Kayley.  He loves to spike her hair, which is NOT GROWING AT ALL!  She usually comes downstairs after her baths looking like this:

Daddy's Little Helper??

This may not be what Andy had in mind when Drew got a little carpenter toolbelt set for his bithday.  Kayely fell in love with it.  Yes, it has a real hammer.  Yes, this is the girl that cut her own hair when she was left alone with scissors.  Yes, we are aware she could do some real damage if she is out of our sight! 

Winter Fun

The weekend of Drew's birthday was the first time it snowed this year.  We have been very lucky!  Or unlucky if you ask our kids.  They have been itching to get their snow gear on and play outside in the snow.  It finally happened and Andy took them right out to sled and build a snowman.  I think the three of them were out there for almost 1 1/2 hours.  I watched from the comfort of our house, but I did go outside long enough to take a couple of pictures.  :-) 

Unfortunately for the snowman, the weather warmed up the next day and melted the snowman.  Drew and Kayley were a little disappointed as you can imagine!

Birthday Round Two

Drew has been to many birthday parties for his friends, but has never had a friend birthday party himself.  We decided to let him do it this year.  He had a joint birthday party with his best friend Sam who turned 5 on January 10th.  The boys chose to have their birthday party at Rainbow Play Systems and they loved it!  Rainbow makes the playsets for your backyard.  They have a big showroom here with playsets on display and they rent the showroom out for birthday parties.  Perfect for winter birthdays! 

Cake

Birthday boys

Kayley enjoying cake and ice cream

Amelia came all the way from Davenport for the party!

Blurry picture of the play area