Constant Beginnings

I don't claim to be an expert on this stuff, but it is why I went to school. Sooooo, here is my posting about preschool, language, and ideas for you. First let me say that I am not the product of a preschool education. Nope. Never went. Did well in school. Learned what I needed to know there, although I suppose I had some "teaching" from my parents along the way. Anyway, I never really believed in the whole preschool thing. I still don't, really. HOWEVER, living in New England, there is a strong push to get your child in the best preschool with the best curriculum with the best experiences. Those schools also have the biggest and best price tags, too. Chris and I have talked alot about what we should do with our kiddos. Claire is smart, not that I am bragging. It is simply a fact. She has a very large vocabulary, learns quickly, uses sounds far above what is expected for her age, and has a memory like no other. That being said, language is tied to cognition. Theory ...

i was certain today was going to be a pretty normal day when reminding chris to call his mother last night because it was mother's day today he responded, "i thought mother's day was on the 10th." um. no. needless to say, i was rather surprised when flowers were sitting outside my door this morning. i was even more surprised after reading the card. they were from "my 2 daughters." i knew instantly they were actually from my sweet little next door neighbor, dottie. she is a doll. she has offered to watch our kids or lend a hand whenever i might need. how sweet of her to think of me on this day! it definitely was one of the kindest things an acquaintance has ever done for me. it made my day and perhaps my week! in chris' defense, he purchased mother's day cards for me and his own mother a couple of weeks ago. however, they all lay on the counter, blank. i guess it is the thought that counts.

since there is so much time that i need to provide entertainment to our kids, i've been trying to work on some school skills each night. lately we've been working on tracing letters, matching and naming colors, counting, and sound identification. claire loves "doing her homework." even mya loves it. she is working on reading. claire wants to do her homework all the time. i am sure she'll feel differently in about 9 years.

claire has her own sense of style. lately, she's been wanting to pick out her own clothes. i am usually able to convince her to wear what i'd like, but i generally let her choose the shoes pretty freely. consequently, she's worn her brown boots with shorts several times. however, we discovered that she really needed some sandals for the summer weather we've been having. off to target we went and found some sparkly little flip flops. the girl loves shoes. i had to work hard to convince her that two pairs were enough. she selected every pair of sparkly shoes in the store. it was quite an adventure, but we find some cute ones.

last weekend we ventured out for a day of fun with michelle and baby lucy. we had a great time. they also had kindermusic that day, so we got a two for the price of one deal. it was great. claire took after her daddy and fed the animals. she wasn't scared at all. pretty impressive. mya just looked at the animals, trying to figure out what they were exactly. she loved the music stuff. she danced and bopped all around. she also discovered how to climb up on the stroller. claire liked it too, but it takes her a bit longer to warm up to new situations. she was good to go by the end, using the scarves to twirl and dance. it was a fun day and the weather was gorgeous!

one challenge of surviving deployments is keeping chris in the minds of our kids. claire is obviously a bit more understanding about the whole situation and seems to get the idea that he is away. i tell her that daddy is 'helping the people.' i used this phrase when chris was in iraq and it works. she gets it. other things we do is have lots of family pictures around. we talk about him often and try to talk to him as much as possible too. chris had the idea of placing a large world map above claire's bed. together, they put pins in all the different locations of our families and also where we are located as well as korea. claire is quite the kid. weeks later she can still tell me where each person is located by pointing to the map. we received a gift in the mail from our besties april and mark. she had pillows made with each of the kids' pictures with chris. they are very cute. the kids snuggled up to them all afternoon and through the night. i must say the pics are ve...

before i forget... claire saw my bra strap underneath my tank top, touched it while lifting her shirt. she then pointed to her tummy while holding the strap saying, "i need one of these." i smiled and said, 'no you don't.' she continued explaining with, 'i need one fo my niffles.' oh yes she did. such a funny girl.