Addressing the Special Needs of Gifted Children, #6 - Page 37

[eilonwy]

Originally Posted by teachma

About poop...wow, I missed a big discussion here! I like the interest in how poop becomes poop. I like it a lot better than our only (thankfully short-lived) poop issues. Ds has always been extremely regular (TMI, I know) and poops once each day, before bed. One day last year, his stomach was hurting mid-day and he REFUSED to poop because "it isn't night time." I tried to impress upon him that bodily functions aren't attached to times of day always, and I even asked, "What about when you have to sneeze? Do you sneeze only at breakfast time? No...you sneeze whenever your body tells you it's going to sneeze." I know, not a great comparison since one is completely involuntary, but it did kind of help him get the point that when your body sends you a message about what it needs, you need to take care of your body.

My neice BeastieBeast did this; it was part of her whole collection of ultra-rigid behaviors, more than anything. She also doesn't have great body awareness, she doesn't really feel pain until it gets extreme (like, after her eardrum has ruptured she'll say, "my ear hurts," in a quiet, whiny voice ) so going to the bathroom at the same times every day was a bit of a comfort thing for her.

Rynna, about listening to the "baby" in BooBah's belly...I find it incredible that BooBah understands the whole pregnancy thing! Just this weekend, we were with a pregnant cousing, and I told dd (20 months old) that there was a baby in her tummy. Dd looked incredulous and said, "No. Too silly. Eat it up baby?" I guess I shouldn't have used the word 'tummy,' which is the same word I use for where the food goes! I just thought uterus would confuse, but I guess tummy did instead! I can't remember when ds "got" that concept, but certainly he did when he was 3 and I was pregnant.

I specifically started using the word uterus when I was pregnant with BeanBean to explain to ChibiChibi that the baby didn't live in my stomach and wasn't just eating my food like a tapeworm. BeanBean "got it" very early on, long before I thought that he was ready to understand, so I guess it didn't surprise me much that BooBah understood, too (she's a little bit older for this pregnancy than BeanBean was for the last). BeanBean asks very different questions from the ones that ChibiChibi asked, and I find those fascinating, and BooBah understands that the baby inside of my uterus is "super mini" but insists that she herself is still a baby (BeanBean actually did the same thing while I was pregnant with BooBah). Such a lovey! Every week or so, BeanBean will ask me how big the baby inside of me is, and I'll show him with my hands how big the baby is now and how big he needs to be to come out. He's very concerned about the baby coming out, of course, because then he can nurse again.

[mamaverdi]

R, I was only thinking of Everyone Poops as a fun for 3 year old kind of book, not a poop-making book. Eww...is this a gross sentence or what.

Why not ask at the doctor's office for one of those books? Or call and ask when their drug reps come by so you can ask one of them. (I spend entirely too much time in doc offices, and the drug reps have set times usually.)

teachma, still anxious to hear what the therapist said tonight.

Anyone have ideas for baby books for Little Bear? Seems we are out of baby books here. He likes listening to Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH :P but I wanted something board-bookish that would be fun.

Anyone read any other O'Brian (MF&RofNIMH) books? Are they worth getting more?

Just went and found some new books for DS1 (who has no pseudonym---hm....). Anyone read Artemis Fowl?

Ok, enough for now, must go to bed.

[eilonwy]

I've never read them, but I've heard that the Artemis Fowl books are great to listen to on disc. They're on my list of audiobooks to check out.

I'm not sure which reps bring the cool books... a lot of them seem to only bring drug samples. Maybe I'll go looking at pharmaceutical websites on Friday and just send emails to all of them asking for cool books and nifty freebies. So many of them leave really cool stuff that my kids just love... like the bone models, clocks and calendars that have nifty water toys attached to them, and of course those fabulous charts.

[USAmma]

I was so amazed today!!

Nitara has taken an interest in letters, and thanks to Starfall.com and her older sis, she knows most of them. She also likes to scribble, and will ask me to write letters for her and then she scribbles and announces that she is drawing them, too. Most of the time it's just scribbling.

Well this morning she asked me to draw 2 A's for her. Then I went and did dishes and she continued to scribble. She walked up to me with her paper and said, "Here mommy, this is for you. A's." I looked and my jaw dropped. She really had written A's! All over the paper! Some are upside down but they are definitely A's.

Here it is
The two I drew first are upper center of the paper in black marker. The rest are hers! 22 months old!

Then I was cleaning up and found another paper that she did yesterday with more A's on it.
Here it is

Abi did very much the same thing at the same age, except she was mostly drawing Tamil (dh's language) letters and just a few English ones like T's and O's. Nitara is not obsessed with letters the way Abi was, but she too will point out many letters, upper and lowercase, in her world. Looks like I may have another ahead-of-the-curve child on my hands.

Thanks for listening to my brag. I don't know very many places where I can share such things without ruffling feathers.

ETA: LOVE the virutual poop website! Abi is a semi-expert on such things becuase of her sister's GI issues. Yesterday at lunch with a friend, she told all about how the food was processed.

[teachma]

[QUOTE=mamaverdi]

teachma, still anxious to hear what the therapist said tonight.

[/ QUOTE]

Okay, not too terribly much. Ds had his regular session with her, and then I got 5 minutes to speak with her privately at the end. I gave her a copy of the whole report and explained to her some of the areas where I disagreed with the tester's remarks. (I had already annotated the entire report, so she'll see my POV all over the place whether she wants it or not!) I also asked her what she thinks about the fact that ds clearly avoided answering some questions due to his emotional issues about the subject of those questions (i.e., babysitters and strangers, and maybe more). She said that she's surprised the tester did not comment upon that at all. Also, in the report, the tester mentioned numerous times that ds either knew the answer or immediately said, "I don't know," and there was no "in between." In other words, he didn't really make failed attempts; rather, he declined to attempt in the face of potential failure. (This is VERY typical of him) His therapist did not have time to look over the report at all while I was present, but I did tell her he tested in the high average to superior range, not gifted per se. She didn't really remark on that. With regard to ds's sarcastic and mildly rude attitude the tester picked up on, the therapist said, "Well, yeah, he is very guarded until you get to know him." I liked her way of phrasing it much more than the way the tester stated it (w/ words like "defensive, "rude," and "sarcastic" to name a few) but then again, therapist really knows him.

I'm not so caught up in the IQ numbers right now as I am in this fact: If he responded "I don't know" due to emotional issues and/or fear of possibly getting a wrong answer, and if this continues to be his way of dealing with issues that are frightening to him and questions that are even the least bit challenging for him, how severely will this impact his ability to reach his true potential at school and in life? And WHAT to do about it?

The more I think about the testing experience and the results, the more I (and dh agrees) am certain they aren't super accurate. But since I wanted them just for me and not for the school, I am not so upset. I have only shared them with my mom, because she is like ds's 2nd mom!

[teachma]

Originally Posted by mamaverdi

Anyone have ideas for baby books for Little Bear? Seems we are out of baby books here. He likes listening to Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH :P but I wanted something board-bookish that would be fun.

Anyone read any other O'Brian (MF&RofNIMH) books? Are they worth getting more?

I bought Mrs. Frisby for ds for Chanukah! (Can't remember where I put it, now that I think of it...) When he was littler, we had the Golden Books version of it, and it was an obsession for a while, so I loook forward to reading this one to him! We're still working on Mrs. Pigglewiggle though. There are a lot in that series.

I forgot the age of Little Bear. Dd is 20 months, and I will check to see what we have when I get home from work. She is VERY into The Cat in the Hat right now, but we do have some great board books that captivate her attention. I can't think of any off hand- how sad is that? I guess I'm preoccupied right now. Will get back to that later.

[teachma]

USAmma, just wanted to say the As are Absolutely Awesome!
And now I'll stop aned let someone else post...

[oldcrunchymom]

Originally Posted by teachma

Also, in the report, the tester mentioned numerous times that ds either knew the answer or immediately said, "I don't know," and there was no "in between." In other words, he didn't really make failed attempts; rather, he declined to attempt in the face of potential failure.

That's exactly what Hollis did when he took his. The tester said he had a "lack of academic strategies" because he wouldn't guess.

Congrats to Nitara on her A's! They're beauteous.

[Daffodil]

Originally Posted by mamaverdi

Anyone read any other O'Brian (MF&RofNIMH) books? Are they worth getting more?

I loved The Silver Crown when I was a kid!

And as long as I'm out of lurkdom, can I take a moment to brag about my kid? I'm excited that Lindy's learning to read. She'll be three in a couple of months, so it's not like she's doing anything so amazing compared to some of your kids (especially since I've been deliberately teaching her phonics - it's not like she just figured it out on her own), but I just think it's so cool to see her actually sounding out words. Mostly just simple three-letter short-vowel ones at this point, though she seems to pretty much understand the rule about words with silent e at the end, and she knows the sounds "ee" and "oo" make. (The other day she was saying "ooh!" about something, and then she said, "I'm two O's!") She's learning to spell words with refrigerator magnets or by typing on a keyboard, too. She can spell out her favorites ("go," "poop," and "pee") with no help at all, and she can do others with some hints and encouragement.

She's a long way from being able to write words with a pencil. She can do rudimentary O's and X's, but nothing as complicated as an A, so I'm really impressed with Nitara's A's!

[eilonwy]

Originally Posted by teachma

I'm not so caught up in the IQ numbers right now as I am in this fact: If he responded "I don't know" due to emotional issues and/or fear of possibly getting a wrong answer, and if this continues to be his way of dealing with issues that are frightening to him and questions that are even the least bit challenging for him, how severely will this impact his ability to reach his true potential at school and in life? And WHAT to do about it?

My brother was just like this as a small child. Even today, he's very tense and a bit of a perfectionist. He seems to *enjoy* worrying.

Many things helped me to outgrow my own perfectionistic tendancies (and I had a few... nothing like some of the kids on this thread or my brother, but some). The first thing was failing a few classes. This happened in 6th or 7th grade, and the world didn't end. It was a real eye-opener for me, because I think that on some level, I thought that the world *would* end. The next was starting to play the violin. I thought that I was *horrible* at it, for one thing. When I would make a mistake in my playing, I would stop and go back to the beginning of the piece. It drove the teachers crazy! At some point, the teacher explained to me that in the middle of a concert, I *couldn't* go back to the beginning and start over-- I would have to keep going, and remember not to make the mistake next time around. This was very difficult for me to internalize (I still haven't fully wrapped myself around the idea) but I did understand the point-- the world wasn't hinging on that one note/beat/whatever. I was capable of moving on and doing better the next time.

My mother never tried anything that she might fail at, so I never saw coping strategies in action and I never learned them for myself. This is why I try very hard to try new things, and to let my kids see me making mistakes (which is very easy since we drive a fair bit and I am forever lost ). BeanBean knows that it's okay to say, "Whoops!" and try again, and he does it, too. Mistakes happen, they're not the end of the world, and he can totally deal with it. After all, Mamma makes mistakes all the time, like turning left when she should have turned right two blocks earlier... And Daddy makes mistakes, too. We apologize if it's necessary and we just move on. It's all good.

[USAmma]

Originally Posted by Daffodil

She's a long way from being able to write words with a pencil. She can do rudimentary O's and X's, but nothing as complicated as an A, so I'm really impressed with Nitara's A's!

Funny thing is, she has never tried an O. She will draw a "sun" sometimes with the rays going every which way but not circle in the middle. She also will scribble different colors over different parts of pictures in a coloring book. I guess she's just doing things backwards. Typical of my kids.

[eilonwy]

BeanBean has absolutely no interest in writing whatsoever. He doesn't even particularly enjoy painting or drawing. He'll go at it for a little while, then say, "Eeewww, I'm all messy!" go wash his hands and that will be the end of it. I'm not worried about it. BooBah, on the other hand, loves to write and draw, any time, anyplace. Just last week FIL said, "You must have worked really hard with her to get her to have such a good grip on that pen. It's better than mine!" [FTR, this is not exaggeration, it's absolute truth; FIL's grip and handwriting are both appalling.] When I told him that I hadn't, he didn't believe me. But how could I have possibly taught her that?! She's 17 months old, does he really think that I would stand behind a child that young and say, "You're holding that crayon incorrectly, let me help you..."?! As if I have that kind of time or energy! I was just happy to see that she wasn't trying to eat them anymore.

[catgirl]

Originally Posted by teachma

in the report, the tester mentioned numerous times that ds either knew the answer or immediately said, "I don't know," and there was no "in between." In other words, he didn't really make failed attempts; rather, he declined to attempt in the face of potential failure. (This is VERY typical of him)

Linda Silverman (of the GDC) mentiones a kid exactly like this in "Upside Down Brilliance". Because the tester knew how to handle and encourage him (saying things like "If you did know, what would you say?" "How about taking a guess?" "WHat would your dinosaur friend say if he knew?"), as SiIlverman puts it "by the time he wqs done, he'd 'guessed' all the way up to an IQ of 190. If he'd had a tester who'd taken him at his word and not encouraged him to try, it would probably come out closer to 100."

SOunds like this tester has no experience with gifted kids, and was even clueless enough to take your very small child's issues personally. From everything you've said about your kid, he sounds very gifted. Silverman again points out that IQ tests are a bit like pregnancy tests - there's no such thing as a false positive, but you can certainly get a false negative. HTH.

[mamaverdi]

I love the A's! Love them.

Okay, will check out the O'Brian book mentioned that I now can't remember after reading up the thread.

Cool about the new little phonetic reader. So what are you using to teach phonics. I'm a combo reading learner myself. I thought my mom had taught me to read, but she says, nope, I just started reading when I was early 4 and put in kindergarden. I know I was reading while the other kids were being read to, but I don't have much memory beyond that. (It's strange because my memory about many things is so clear...but it was a pretty stressful time in my life, unfortunately.)

Wow, teachma, I mean, it sounds like the tester was clueless. The more and more I think about it, I think you should use the results as an understanding of the BOTTOM of your ds's intelligence level. Or to line your cat box.

No, maybe the most useful thing is the understanding about not atttempting should you not fail. Knitting really helps teach me this. It takes me so dang long---well, I'm still learning---but I do not want to redo the whole row, so I have to learn how to pick up a dropped stitch. At first, I just undid all the stitches to that point, but it sucked. So now I'm trying to master the picking up a dropped stitch thing. I don't know that your ds would want to take up knitting, but my ds1 definitely does....he just doesn't have the fine motor skills yet.

Maybe horseriding---hippotherapy?

Sweet thing that happened at DS1's school today...we have been thinking of moving him. I have had some problems with how they manage the classroom---bribing with candy and calling people out a little too much without any explanation of why. And their insistence that whole language is the whole and only way to teach reading. But the longer we're there, the more I realize how much he likes it. They do science everyday. Right now they are working on Electricity. DS1 just soaks it up. He loves it. Of course, this is a revisisting of his fascination with electricty when he was early 3: he weaned himself one day cold turkey, next day asked to learn about how circuits work, and then a couple weeks later asked if he could go to preschool. P Okay, sorry got caught up there, anyway, so we are spending though at least 4 hours in the car getting him there and back, and it's just too much for Little Bear (19.5 months). He has therapy almost every day, and he's pretty much stopped working at therapy. Well that and an upper GI trauma. So...arg, to the point...two other moms there when I asked if anyone knew someone who could bring DS1 to school or I would need to move him just started gushing about how wonderful he was, and how well he got along with their boys, and how I CANNOT move him. And one of the moms lives somewhat near me! Not close, but maybe enough that I could meet them and drop him off for the morning ride! It was soooo nice to hear those nice comments about my fierce dragon boy. Especially when he's being such a pain in the tush 5.5 yr old at home lately.


mv

[mamaverdi]

Originally Posted by catgirl

Linda Silverman (of the GDC) mentiones a kid exactly like this in "Upside Down Brilliance"...he'd 'guessed' all the way up to an IQ of 190. If he'd had a tester who'd taken him at his word and not encouraged him to try, it would probably come out closer to 100."

SOunds like this tester has no experience with gifted kids, and was even clueless enough to take your very small child's issues personally. From everything you've said about your kid, he sounds very gifted. Silverman again points out that IQ tests are a bit like pregnancy tests - there's no such thing as a false positive, but you can certainly get a false negative. HTH.

:

[Daffodil]

Originally Posted by mamaverdi

Cool about the new little phonetic reader. So what are you using to teach phonics.

I'm not using any kind of book or program. I've just been using refrigerator magnets, or writing out words, or pointing out words in books, and explaining how to sound them out. I started with short vowels and single consonants, and am gradually introducing some of the more advanced concepts. (And she's learned a few things from Starfall.) She likes me to write out little "messages" for her - commands like "hop" or "run fast" or "get on the bed." And since none of the libraries around here seem to have anything quite as simple as the Bob books, I've made her a couple of simple "books" to try reading. Last night she read one all the way through for the first time, though she probably did it at least partly from memory.

Lindy is really hesitant to try doing anything she isn't absolutely sure she can do, and doesn't respond well to anything that feels like pressure, so at first I had to do a lot of demonstration without asking her to do anything herself. Now I can gently encourage her to try sounding out words out and she'll (often) do it, but I have to be low-key about it.

It's interesting that learning phonics rules seems a lot easier for her than learning to recognize sight words. She's seen the word "the," for instance, many times, and been told many times what it is, but she still generally seems puzzled when she comes across it, because she doesn't know how to sound it out. I suppose it's partly just because I've been teaching her that reading means sounding words out, but maybe it also means her mind works the way mine does. Explicitly teaching phonics rules is certainly the approach to reading that makes the most sense to me.

[allgirls]

Congratulations on the reading! Wow! Sophia has started to be interested in sounds of letters...she gets the concept. She has slowed down quite a bit of the academic stuff but I have noticed lately her stories are becoming quite detailed and her vocabulary has increased. She told me yesterday "I am so proud of you mommy" so sweet.

Sophia started making H's a while ago, tried to do an A, couldn't make the top meet without crossing over and stopped trying. Maybe today I will get out paper and pencil and gently see what happens...she hasn't tried to "write" since. She gets frustrated with herself. She's pretty good with X's and O's. She's like your Boobah Eilonwy, she could hold the pen properly very young, she would look at how her sisters or I was holding it and try to set it up in her hand the right way. People used to comment on it a lot at playgroups.

She throws her books down in frustration as well "I can't read them" and gets upset. But she loves her books so much so she doesn't abandon them for long. I was musing about the Bob books being good for learning to read so now she is asking for them. I may order some online..she loves the website. She also likes to type letters on the computer so I let her do it on Word all the time..she can spell her name and mom and dad and pop.

I think Sophia is headed into learning phonics to read..the other day she saw the word "wild" and started making the "wuh" sound trying to read the word. I haven't been teaching her as such but maybe I will start. Her preschool isn't teaching that of course...most of the kids are not ready and I am doing preschool for socialization.

She moves into the "big girl" classroom today. Most of the kids there are late 2,3 and 4 year olds. She is 29 mos tomorrow so almost 2.5. The teacher said we could have started her there back in August but it was nice to have the transition. It's funny, she says she will miss the "babies" but they are the same age. She just seems so mature. Of course because of her size she looks really young in the big room. I am a little worried but the teachers are awesome and I think she will do fine..she's ready. I cannot believe how social my little shy girl has become. She is not particularly extroverted but she's certainly not shy anymore.

I am fascinated by the testing. My dd who is 11 just went through the testing for a learning disability. Part of it was an IQ test. It showed a verbal language deficiency...she can only read phonetically...she doesn't remember sight words. It was fascinating but the tester was awesome. Her IQ is pretty high, 130, so it was easy to see the descrepancy(sp?) She has an IEP now...it's helping but some of the teachers just do not get it...I said they have a teaching disability

I am thinking about having my oldest tested. She is 15. I bet she's gifted. Some of the things you describe on here describes her to a tee...particularly the perfectionist thing. Where were you guys 15 years ago. She is brilliant as far as I can tell yet does terrible in school(mostly attitude, they are all stupid and what's the point) but with very little effort gets A's when she tries...I mean seriously, all she has to do is pass in the assignments and study for a few hours a month and she would get straight A's. BUT she also has trouble with language. She is an avid reader so I never considered it but I think she may also have a learning disability.

Also she seems to show some ADHD type behaviours. I had read somewhere that caffeine helps kids with attention disorders so I have been encouraging her to drink coffee before she studies(haven't told her it's to help her concentrate, she thinks it's grown up) and anyway, makes a huge difference. So I have been giving her coffee $ for school and there has been a marked improvement in her concentration, behaviour, attention etc. I have noticed it. Teachers have emailed me to tell me how well she is doing and have used words like "changed girl" wow! and they know nothing about the coffee. It's all I have done. She had tons of problems in school and suddenly it's very quiet. I am scared

Well that's 3 of the 4, may as well tell you about baby Martina...she's 5wks 1 day and absolutely delightful. She rolled over about a week ago twice from back to tummy, she does not like to sleep on her back. She is very bright and very verbal, she coos and gurgles. Teeny bit of reflux but nothing serious..she is a great sleeper going a 5-7 hr stretch some nights. she was born at 9lbs10oz and at 5 wks was 12lbs 12oz! She's only 22.5 inches long so quite chubby.

Well I better scoot. This is the longest post I have ever written on MDC

Eilonwy~Sophia will paint with a brush very carefully but will not do finger paints...ewww...she has a terrible aversion against sticky hands. She's so particular. My 11 year old still wipes her hands in her pants but Sophia will say "may I have a nakkin please" She will not wear anything if food gets on it even.

[eilonwy]

Originally Posted by allgirls

Congratulations on the reading! Wow! Sophia has started to be interested in sounds of letters...she gets the concept. She has slowed down quite a bit of the academic stuff but I have noticed lately her stories are becoming quite detailed and her vocabulary has increased. She told me yesterday "I am so proud of you mommy" so sweet.

I'm noticing a major vocabulary increase in BeanBean, too. He seems to be on one of those curves again. (I tend to think of learning as curve-plateau-curve-plateau.) I know that a lot of it is simply exposure, and I'm glad that I get to talk to my mother on occasion because quite frankly using less-than-common words is not a strong suit of my ILs or even Mike. Well, that's not quite true-- Mike's speaking vocabulary has grown a great deal since he met me. But BeanBean is hearing new words in all kinds of places, most notably from audiobooks (I occasionally listen to *gasp* actual literature!) and movies ("revolting" comes to mind) and listening to me and my mother talk. It's absolutely hilarious to hear big words coming out of a little mouth.

He's also started a new thing recently, playing with words (making puns). For example, he asked this morning, "Are you on the internet? Or are you in your net?" This was hilarious to his Royal Mininess. I recently learned that this is a kindergarten thing, that many children start doing this when they're 5-6 years old (I thought that it was a bit late ) so it's just one more thing to let me know that I was absolutely correct to believe that BeanBean was at a kindergarten level this year, for the most part.

Eilonwy~Sophia will paint with a brush very carefully but will not do finger paints...ewww...she has a terrible aversion against sticky hands. She's so particular. My 11 year old still wipes her hands in her pants but Sophia will say "may I have a nakkin please" She will not wear anything if food gets on it even.

This is what makes BeanBean seem so strange to me. He really enjoys getting messy, but it seems like he does it only for the sheer joy of washing his hands/taking a shower/taking a bath afterwards. I've met kids who hated to be messy at all and kids who revelled in it, but I've never met one like BeanBean who seems to enjoy cleaning himself up enough to get deliberately messy.

BooBah is my neat baby. When she spills something she says, "Mess! Towel please," and cleans it up. Of course, her wall art does not fall into the category of "mess."

mamaverdi-- Need any help with picking up stitches? I actually use two different methods, depending on how far down the stitch was dropped. If it's only a row or two, I can often do it with the needles in the amount of time that it would take me to get up and find a crochet hook.

BeanBean's swimming lesson went very well last night. The instructor has really noticed an improvement in his listening and direction-following. He's having the time of his life. The younger instructor told me last night that she's never had a student so quick to get out of the water who was so good *in* the water. Most of the time, when a child gets out of the water it's because they can't swim, they're uncomfortable, it's all unfamiliar to them... not so with BeanBean. He gets out because he's distractible, or he wants to talk to Mamma, or whatever but then jumps in with no trouble at all and swims like a fish. He'd been looking forward to jumping off of the platform all week, and was obviously thrilled when that time came. The little girl (the 5/nearly 5 year old) jumped very cautiously off of the wall, but BeanBean went sailing off of the platform like a little wild thing. Anyway, I'm very happy, he's learning exactly what I wanted him to learn from this class and making rapid progress. He waited his turn with only two reminders. This is very exciting to me!

[allgirls]

Eilonwy~I agree with the curve~plateau~curve~plateau thing...that's why I don't post here much...Sophia does something, I post, then nothing for a long while. I still think I don't notice things sometimes simply because I am so used to her. But when you mentioned the pun thing it made me remember that Sophia rhymed for the first time last night. I said "good night Sophia Bobia"(I always rhyme her name in silly ways) and she said "good night Mommy Tommy" I was very impressed and told her so, of course she wouldn't do it again...why do I think she will do things simply because I ask

We don't use less than common words either. Sometimes it's not the words though, it's what they say. Sophia said the other morning after a huge blizzard for 2 days while looking out the back door. "The snow has stopped, the sun is shining, it's a brand new day" all wistful-like.

I often laugh at the things she says, not because they are funny but simply because it's funny to hear some things coming out of this teeny 2 year old. Well she will get livid..."it's not funny, I didn't say anything funny" and will melt down completely. My older daughters lie to her and tell her they are laughing at the television or a joke the other told simply to prevent her from melting down. I usually explain that I am not laughing at what she says, just that I didn't expect her to say that. She's not getting it yet so she gets upset. I am trying to control it but it's tough. She's so darn cute She is definitely not a performer.

Glad the swimming is going well...I definitely want my little ones to swim...Sophia is an ultra cautious child so I think she will need a coach. DH can't swim(his father ran a shipping company for years and DH worked on the boats, lived near the ocean, owned a boat, yet can't swim) and he is afraid of being in(not on) the water. So he really wants our kids to swim. My older kids are great swimmers...no lessons, we had a pool all their young lives and so did a couple of our best friends...they pretty much learned on their own. My 11 year old did have stroke correction lessons a couple summers ago.

The younger two will probably need lessons...I am too nervous to have a pool now...since I am home with 4 kids 90% of the time alone and do not trust to have the older kids close a gate so little ones can't get in. It's my own paranoia...how did my mother ever raise us at the edge of the ocean.

Well wee one is waking...it's been a successful morning..both kids have slept for a few hours, cleaned the bathroom, floors, started laundry, oh my the house looks pretty decent plus got to post here, twice

Cheers everybody!

[TEAK's Mom]

I just had to chime in about word play and puns. TEAK has been a big fan of puns since she was about 2.5. One of my favorites (and, I think her first conscious pun) was just after ABKA was born and someone had given TEAK some little animal figurines as a big sister gift. She was about 29 months at the time and a little touchy. She was running around the house saying, "we need a cat! we need a cat!" I was getting ready to explain that we already had two dogs and didn't need another pet when she paused and said, "this cat is named Weenie: Weenie da Cat!" I nearly peed my postpartum pants. She hasn't stopped yet.

I do apologize for not posting more regularly, between the slow internet connection and the fact that the 15 month old is trying to give up naps, my productive time is somewhat limited. I do read most days and am finding all of your thoughts and experiences very helpful/comforting.