Seven Quick Takes

Princess and the Pee

1.

There's enough tidbit news that I'm going to actually do a Quick Take.

We potty trained Anna last week and for real, it only took two days. I didn't want to jinx it and celebrate too early, but all last week and all this week, she has been happily using the potty on her own, both pee-pee and poo-poo. Day 1 she did 2 potties and Day 2 she actually did a poop on her own, with no one watching her to make she didn't go in her pants. I was very impressed!

Earlier in the week, the glory of potty training was wearing off and she was getting tired of the "game", so we quick pulled out our tricks and rewarded her for using the potty faithfully by buying her some Dora underwear. This renewed her interest in going potty and thankfully, I think she's done with wanting to wear diapers. She wears them for naps and bedtimes but yanks them off and sits on the pot first thing in the morning without being told.
Success!

2. 

Today is Grandparents Day at the kids school. Mom called and said that both Lucy, Luke and Max were excited to see her, but out of all the kids, it was Luke who was the happiest! He kept showing off Grandma, telling everyone, "This is my Grandma!"

3.
 By the way, Mom got in a little fender-bender today. This is what she called it, anyway. To me it sounded more like a crash on the highway, but the point is that she's fine. The Homecoming King rear-ended her from behind. He was all shaken up and shook his head at Mom saying, "This is not a good day!" He was on his way to school and they were supposed to have a pep-fest celebrating the King and Queen for Homecoming so he was in a hurry. Mom calmed him down and comforted him. Let me tell you, he's lucky he bumped into her! Most people would have given the Homecoming King a few words. But all kidding aside, I'm glad no one was hurt and I'm glad for virtues of charity. Hopefully he will pay it forward if anyone rear ends him.
(By the way, Mom had a broken bumper and a bit of whip-lash but is fine otherwise. By broken bumper, I mean the car, haha.)

4.

For anyone who is interested, Luke is still doing fine! I'm still surprised at the concern of people (though grateful too), but then I guess when I envision Luke covered in gasoline, I guess I get it.

5. 

With the kids in school, Anna gets a little bored. All of a sudden, I go back about 6 years to having a life of only 2 kids. We go on a lot of walks and Anna enjoys being the only kid, but I can't always entertain her. Today I did a sensory diet game from Max's therapy that we are supposed to use when the kids are over-stimulated (but we always forget to do it.) It's great for those with sensory issues, but it works for any kid just as a game: 

You fill a bowl of water with a little bit of soap and give the kid a straw and they blow bubbles. That's it. It's great for the two year old who hasn't mastered blowing through a bubble wand yet, and it's great for the hyper-active kid who is having trouble calming down, as this exercise involves deep breathing and blowing forcefully. Spitting is not supposed to be included. ( For those of you who read by email, you need to click over to the blog to watch the video.)

6.

I just can't help it. I can't stop watching this video. It's just to funny.
Watch it--Sheep that screams like a human. Again, if you want to watch the video, you have to click over to the blog to watch it:

kllfkfl;gkf;gfdkl;gfdglf;dkfgld;kflg

7.

On a serious note (I know, these Quick Takes are all over the place!) all the kids are doing extremely well in school. I'm really especially happy that I have had no resistance from Luke to going to school. Maybe he was just bored in preschool. 

I'm a little worried about Max, but not worried about the school, if that makes any sense. I would be worried for him in any school. This school does seem to really give a good solid effort though. He came home yesterday with a list of spelling words--probably a test--and only one out of the 15 were right. His phonics is great, as you could see how he sounded out each word, but they were all wrong. 

We did a little geography homework yesterday and he colored in some countries on a map; he didn't seem to understand what the map signified, which were countries. Instead every time colored another country according to the color code, he would ask "Is this the lava?" When I told him it was a country he would ask what a country is. So I would tell him and we would color another country and he asked if we were now coloring in the water. Again I told him, no, it's a country, and he again would ask what a country was. This continued on during the entire homework session. It made me wonder how much is sinking through during class. 

For Math, he had 4 pages of simple adding and subtraction. He did pretty good on that except on the last page he accidentally added instead of subtracted. He practically had a melt-down over that. I had him take a half hour break and then do it over later. The last thing we had to do was spelling; the teacher wanted everyone to write each of the 15 words 3 times, and then use each word in a sentence. It was just too much for Max; he was crying from the stress of it all and the stress of a long day. I emailed his teacher explaining what happened and asked if I could cut his spelling down to just writing out the words 3 times; she emailed back and said to do what we could and that his homework would need to be modified to his needs. So I'm worried a little about Max and how much he's really learning at school because he is almost always overwhelmed, but I am not worried about school because he seems to have people who truly want to help him.

It's only the end of week 2. We knew it was going to be hard and it is, but I'm really pulling for Max--and all the kids--to have a great year!