She's reading

Shortly after my last update, Cadence made the leap into reading.

It started with "OK". I told her to push the "OK" button and she sounded it out "ah k" before pushing it. Once I heard her do that, it was full-steam ahead, while trying to remain casual about it since she gets overwhelmed with new things and I didn't want to scare her off.

We started with words she already knew by sight, encouraging her to sound them out, and then branched out to words she wanted to know (for example, she began to recognize the word "fox" from 20th Century Fox's logo and has recently become obsessed with the word "fat"). I opened up our copy of "Cat in the Hat" and began pointing to words she knew (cat, bed) and then to a few words she didn't, that I would sound out and she would read (cup, red).

A week later, she's reading. I picked up another Dr. Seuss book the other week and yesterday we sat down and "read" it together. I would read most of the words, point out sight words for Megan to recognize and encourage Cadence to sound out and read some of the CVC words.

I also put magnet letters on our back door and will leave words for her to read and let her spell out her own words. Yesterday, she easily read "fix" and "jump".

She has a little trouble with connecting "stop" beginning sounds (k, d, b, etc.) to the second half of the word, for example reading "cup" as "up" even though she sounded out the /k/ in the word, but we're chugging along.

Just last night she was giggling as we "argued" over the proper way to spell but, in which she fished out the correct magnets but put them together wrong (at one point turning the U sideways, etc.) I commented to James it's a good thing I didn't teach her how to spell the anatomical "butt", because I'm pretty sure she might write "but" on her papers at Church on Sunday...

Trunk or Treat

Our ward's Trunk or Treat was last night. It was a fun night, though a little chaotic, since I was in the presidency in charge of the event and showed up early to help set up and then stayed to help tear down (though we left earlier than most since I had the youngest brood of the group). The girls showed little interest in most of the carnival activities, in fact they protested quite a bit when we attempted to get them to do the hanging donut eating contest. They didn't quite understand the cupcake walk either. Cadence obediently walked in the circle, but Megan walked in a circle to the cupcake table, helped herself to a cupcake and left the game.

Connor refused to wear his entire costume. He grudgingly left the bandanna in place, but attempt to reattach his beard and he knew how to grab and pull. The entire night was off for him. I hadn't fed him in a few hours and rather than fuss about that, he went to sleep in the middle of the crowd of screaming kids at the carnival. He wasn't too happy to wake up when I put him in the stroller for the actual trunk-or-treating portion of the night, but as long as we kept moving he was fine. It was until we attempted to strap him in his carseat that he decided to inform us of how hungry he was.

Unfortunately for us, in the midst of his screaming, we realized I had misplaced my keys somewhere. Though James has his, losing mine was extremely upsetting. Thankfully, I got a phone call tonight from someone who found them. Apparently, when I stopped to help someone pick up some items of theirs that had fallen, I dumped my keys, along with their buttons and thread, into their bag and walked away. After a frantic 24 hours of not knowing where they are, they are secure. Thank goodness, since replacing car keys is a little pricey nowadays and requires a little more work than just driving down to Walmart and having a key cut at the sporting goods desk.

Anyway, we do have a family picture! We're working on getting updated professional pictures in the next month or so, but for now, this is it.

As for little family updates: Cadence is showing an interest in reading. Once I changed gears and worked on sounding out words to write instead of read, she has done well. She still needs a lot of prompting, but she's picking it up. Megan also recognizes words we've worked on and I expect once Cadence is reading, she'll be more interested in learning it herself.

Connor is 7 months and some change. He's learned how to get himself to a sitting position and how to climb (his favorite climbing apparatus is, of course, me). He's talking up a storm (combining consonants, ba-la-ma-ma, into mock-words instead of repetitive consonants, ba-ba-ba-ba) and recently realized the food everyone else eats is far tastier and more interesting than what I've been giving him. He continues to charm everyone he meets. Just the other day he got his 2nd flu shot (infants need to get 2 in one month to be fully vaccinated) and seconds after he had been crying about it, he was flirting with the nurses.

Zoo Boo

Despite some potentially bad weather, the kids and I braved the Zoo for their annual "Zoo Boo", where they have a few extra Halloween-themed activities. It wasn't anything fancy, which is to be expected when there's no additional cost beyond the entrance fee (or your membership fee, in our case), but the girls got to wear their costumes, paint pumpkins, collect a bit of candy, and still see their favorite animals. I had hoped the potential rain would keep most people away, but the place was more crowded than usual for a weekday morning. Still, we had fun.

Connor's costume didn't last long. He kept trying to eat the beard. The pieces ended up in my purse before we even reached the zoo.

Missing Megan's arm and leg warmers, but here's Pinkie Pie and Supergirl!

Hanging out while the girls painted their pumpkins with paint pens.

He was more excited by his reflection than the chimp only a foot away from him.

Brushing the goats.

Megan protested riding the carousel initially, but once we were on it she loved it. (Cadence refused to smile for the picture)

Lunch time. He's mastering his pincer grasp.

  

They had a few photo op places, so I took advantage of one while we were all still in a good mood. :-)

Dewberry Farm 2013

The original plan for Dewberry Farm was to go later in the month, but when James was given today off, we decided to go ahead and move our plans up by 2 weeks. In the end, I think we all wish we had just waited the extra two weeks. It was hot out. Not just hot, but muggy. A storm rolled in this afternoon and the air got nasty real fast and zapped our energy and enjoyment of what should have been a great trip.

It was so warm the girls had no desire to go on the big slid, swing off of the big haystack, run through the Fort DewHickey or any of the other exciting things to do at the farm that our entrance fee gave us access to. Cadence did swing a little and the girls held my hand as I dragged them through the barn to look at the pigs, rabbits and baby chicks. I was looking forward to doing the corn maze this year, but there was no way I wanted to go in there and have even the occasional breeze blocked off. Poor Connor was extremely uncomfortable in the stroller, even though we poured water down the back of his shirt to help him cool off.

In the end, we used a coupon to get the girls rights to 2 souvenir cups they could fill with wildflowers. James walked them through the field to pick out their flowers. Then we opted to walk to the pumpkin field rather than wait for a seat on the overcrowded hay wagon and its mini-tour of the Christmas tree lots. Patience faded quickly as we all got overheated on the short trek and we were back in the car and on the road not much later. We ran into the storm (the source of the mugginess) halfway home, and it lasted long enough for all of us to cool off a bit.

Unfortunately, I left the sunscreen at home, sitting on the counter and it seems Connor has inherited his dad's skin (my fingers are still crossed I got my little freckle-faced redhead after all!) and both boys came home with a mild sunburn. I'll be more vigilant next time (like our zoo boo trip next week)

She's a Writer, not a Reader

Cadence has known her letters since she was 2, so admittedly I'm a little surprised she's nearly 5 and has shown no interest in the reading I've tried to encourage her to do. Try to get her to sound out words and her eyes glaze over.

I recently realized I've been approaching it all wrong with her. This realization came when she brought a piece of paper over to me. It had been covered with drawings and letters. She settled next to me with her pencil and paper and asked me how to spell "lips". I took a closer look at her paper and realized she had written the 4 words we've used in preschool (Each week, we have a simple sight word, "cat", "bed", "ant" and "dog"). She had written each of the words and drawn an appropriate picture. She had also written her own name and a picture. Then written "BRAVE" and "GISNEY" (with lots of loops, just like the Disney logo).

Something suddenly clicked in my head. Cadence doesn't have the patience or motivation to sit and learn how to read words on the page, but she does have the patience to sit down and sound them out with me to write them.

So, I coached her through the word "lips" by sounding it out with her. Then through the word "doll" and a handful of other words before Connor demanded my attention.

I'll make a reader of her yet. But first, I'm going to make a writer out of her.

Cadence's Coloring Book (Megan, too)

Due to Cadence's love of drawing, I tend to actually toss 99% of her art. In my defense, she can (and has) fill a 70-page notebook with drawings and letters in a single weekend if given free reign. However, I do want to preserve and show off her talent, so I scanned in a few of her recent ones, plus one I could find that Megan had drawn (that Cadence didn't take over and "improve"). So, here you go:

My Little Pony. If you're a Brony like me, see if you can name them all!

She drew the tree, then the girl, then the rain. I'm not 100% sure what the multi-colored thing is supposed to be.

A MLP she created herself and a rainbow and sparkly grass, as described by Cadence. She drew this one for Megan and hung it on the wall.

Megan's developing skill. Two princesses. She picks up a lot of ideas (like the skirts) from Cadence's drawing, but makes them her own.

6 month stats- Connor

Half a year and Chunky Charlie has almost doubled his birth weight. He weighed in at a studly 18lbs 3.5oz, which is larger than both of his sisters at 9 months old (and also heavier than his youngest sister at age 1). Just like his sisters, he dropped a percentile group. Now instead of being just over the 75th percentile line for weight, he's under it, though again, just barely, so maybe 70th percentile total. Keep in mind, this is adjusted for breastfed babies, who tend to not gain weight as quickly as babies on formula.

He's also managed to lengthen out. In fact, his height today was 27.5", which put him just under the 90th percentile line, but well over the 75th. At his 4 month check-up, he was just under the 75th percentile line, so he's gone up almost a full percentile group.

Part of me does wonder if he's acquired a new leanness due to his increased activity now that he's mobile. Both girls dropped percentiles around the same age, and were mobile around the same age. In fact, with Connor, at his last few check-ups his weight was a higher percentile than his height, and now it's reversed. Just last week I held up Connor and commented on how much leaner he looked while talking to James. The only explanation I have is that he's fully mobile now (which seemed to surprise his pediatrician at our check-up).

Anyway, getting little reminders that my baby is not a baby for much longer. The doctor gave me permission to give up a few ounces of juice in a cup to help him learn. I'm also supposed to start him on vitamin drops with flouride (at least until he drinks water more regularly). On top of that, I'm now encouraged to give him table foods, rather than being told "well, if you want to, you can start, but..." As if that wasn't enough of a reminder, his new convertible, big-boy carseat is on a FedEx truck to be delivered this afternoon.

*sniffles* He's getting too big.

I should add that the girls got their flu vaccines while we were there. It seemed silly to wait until November when flu season will be here before then and we were already there. The girls weren't exactly thrilled, but Cadence did really well other than some initial nervousness about having something shoved up her nose. Megan hated it and cried while we waited, but once she was there it went more or less okay. Poor Connor had four vaccines and the flu shot (one vaccine was oral, the flu shot was not). So he got four pricks and I've got to take him in next month for a follow-up flu vaccine. So, we'll be going to the doctor once a month for the rest of the year: October for the follow-up flu shot, November for the girls' annual check-ups, and December for Connor's 9 months. Busy, busy, busy!

Swimming!!!

Our last swimming lesson was today. There's another lesson tomorrow, but because James has a workshop thing to do for work, it was just going to be 100x easier to skip tomorrow and let him drive himself. So, today was it. The girls have been having a blast the last 3 weeks and I think we'll all be a little sad to have no more lessons, but at the same time, getting up at 5:30 3x a week has already gotten old and I'm ready to just be getting up the kids up that early only 2x a week from now on.

Anyway, I'm no expert, but the girls are doing worlds better. No, they're not swimming, they're not even floating. Megan still fights getting water in her ears. However, they're more comfortable in the water, which was my entire reason for taking them. Their teacher has said she's hoping to do another series of lessons before summer starts and I'll for sure make room in our schedule for it again so we can brush up on those skills before pool season begins.

So, here's a few pictures from our last day of lessons. I blurred out their teacher's face, since I don't want to be posting her face all over the internet without her permission, but I couldn't very well get pictures of the girls swimming without her in them, so... Here we go. 

The girls waiting their turn for their one-on-one turn to practice the new skill

Megan "floating" and doing her best to keep water out of her ears.

Cadence did well with her floating, she just got a little tense when not being obviously supported by the teacher. She, too, had issues with her ears in the water, though not as extreme as Megan.

She constantly gripped the edge and would step off the bench to let her legs float beneath her. She thinks buoyancy is fun.

Megan playing at the side of the pool (beautiful shot, IMO)

Cadence kicking her legs and "blowing bubbles" to practice floating/swimming on her belly.

Waiting at the steps after they had jumped off the edge of the pool to the teacher, who let them get in over their heads for a moment before pulling them up and encouraging them to immediately orient themselves and "swim" to the step. The lesson always ended with them fetching the rings from underwater, just low enough they had to get their chins in the water and blow bubbles to reach.

Connor and I chilling at the edge of the pool as we cheer on our little swimmers.

Here a little, there a little

I have yet to take any pictures during swim practice (fingers crossed I get the chance to do so tomorrow, it will depend on Connor's mood). However, here area few pictures to tide you over. :-)

In a quick catch-up, preschool is going well. The novelty has begun to wear off, but the girls are learning and retaining. This Thursday we'll be going to a health museum to match our "science lesson" about how awesome the human body is (for what it's worth, the lesson sucked, but I imagine the health museum will be a blast). Megan is noticeably improving with her fine motor skills and showing definite signs of being a lefty. Cadence is actually struggling a bit because she's been self-taught for so long that she's having a hard time with the formality, but she's excelling performance wise and taking direction well. The problem is she completes the work in 1/3 of the time it takes Megan, so she has a lot of downtime.

Connor cut his second tooth in record time this morning. When I peeked at his gums upon waking, there was nothing to see. At lunchtime, I noticed a solid tooth bud and when I checked again twenty minutes later, it had cut through. On the plus side, with both lower teeth in, we should have at least a month of nothing before the top ones start cutting. He's also extremely mobile now and can be halfway across the living room in the time it takes me to blink. We have his six month check-up next Tuesday, so we'll see how big he's gotten, though most in-town friends estimate him to be about 20lbs by now (considering he was only 16.5 2 months ago, I'm not sure he's that big yet)

I'm also super excited because we've recently decided on a Halloween costume for him and if we can get all the components together, it's going to be super cute (the most important component being taken care of by his grandma!). The girls have also selected their costumes, but their's are store-bought already put together, so no concerns there, though I will need leggings for both of them.

One last update/note, I got an awesome deal on an electric keyboard, with piano-weighted keys (muy importante). Once the keyboard stand and sustain pedal I ordered arrive, I'm excited to start playing again. I was never very good, but it's something I enjoy. The girls and I already spent an hour yesterday printing sheet music to some of their favorite church songs so I could attempt to play them. Their eyes just lit up when I first pulled out our Friend magazine and began playing "A Child's Prayer" and they realized what this new toy was capable of. The best moment was when Cadence sat next to me softly singing along, kicking her little legs and smiling (tears to me eyes, I swear). Next, they sat next to me and instructed me to sing while they "played the song". Oh yes, it's going to be an awesome addition to our home. Eventually I'd like to get an actual piano, but since we're still moving around, a quality keyboard is the next best thing.

Preschool & Swimming Lessons

The school year has begun and so have we! Our schedule got thrown for a loop on our very first day. I planned to start on Monday, completely forgetting it was a holiday, so I rearranged plans to fit into the new 4-day week. Then, a woman from the ward offered preschool-age swimming lessons for a few weeks and I scrambled to rearrange my schedule once more to allow for the 3 weeks of 3x/week lessons. Conveniently, I already had plans for an interrupted schedule on Wednesdays and Fridays (story time and grocery shopping days, respectively), but Monday had to be altered and all those lessons had to be shifted.

However, the new temporary schedule is in place.  Yesterday was more or less a miss in terms of following the schedule, but that was because I didn't get around to re-working the schedule until yesterday afternoon. We did get about an hour of working together on letters and shapes and it did give me a good insight as to the capabilities of each of the girls moving forward. For example, Cadence, my little budding artist, can trace and write like the almost-kindergarten-aged child she is. Megan, however, is much younger and not so advanced in her fine motor skills, and has difficulty tracing even a straight line. She's also still ambidextrous and is starting to favor her left hand, but this could be the natural ambidextrous tendencies from the lack of refined fine motor skills (a preference is often only shown as the fine motor skills improve).

Today went better. We spent about 45 minutes doing "paperwork", before we moved on to some ribbon dancing to classical music (to make up for no swim lessons) and geometric shape puzzles (you know, the yellow hexagons and blue parallelograms made into flowers and fish shapes). Tomorrow will be our first "full day", complete with a lesson about magnets, an art project, and a "journal page" (where they write the word of the week and draw a picture).

As for swimming, we haven't started the actual lessons yet. Yesterday was just for the teacher to evaluate their current ability. As expected, both girls are in the "beginner" class. Cadence did surprisingly well. She didn't swim, but she took to the water better than I expected and did her best to do what was asked of her. Megan took a little longer to warm up to the idea and only did the exercises because I bribed her. They paddled and kicked and tried to float while supported by the teacher.

Our first lesson was supposed to be today, but Connor and Cadence went to bed with stuffy noses and a dry cough and woke up with mild fevers. Thankfully, the cold seems to be a minor one, but I chose to keep all the kids home, let them sleep in, and relax for the day so we can be in good health for the next lesson on Friday! I will hopefully have pictures to be included later once they've advanced enough for me to make another brag post, I mean blog post. ;-)