Say WHAT??

**Make sure to read this out loud, really fast, really loud, and very high-pitched.**

"Mommy? Remember when B came to my birthday but it wasn't my birthday it was America's birthday and there was a parade and fireworks but they were scary fireworks and I don't like those but if I stand up those fireworks are okay if I have a flashlight and I used my flashlight when it was thundering and we had to go to the closet if it got bad but it didn't get bad so we didn't get in the closet and I was sad because I wanted to use my flashlight that I got at the arcade when we went with Daniel when we went swimming but it was plain old swimming not the waterpark even though the arcade was at the waterpark and Daniel wore his Spiderman swim stuff like the Spiderman puzzle I have that Alyce helped me put together on that day I went to work with you because there was no school because it was Easter even though it wasn't really Easter yet even though we did our Easter Party at school but then we had to wait a long time until it was really Easter to go to church at Lydia's church not Lydia-at-school but Lydia-my-neighbor that I go to ballet with when we get McDonalds and have a picnic and watch softball and then go to ballet and I have to be careful not to get grass stains on my ballet tights cause ballerinas don't have grass on their tights and Lydia got to be the line leader and we had an egg hunt at her church and then we came home and the Easter Bunny hid eggs in my yard while I took a nap and then Madi came over and helped me find the eggs but Aly didn't cause she's just a baby and I sang her a song to keep her happy and then everybody went home and I was really sad?"

Breathe.

"Do you remember that, Mommy?"


Ummm.....what was the question??

4 is so much better than 3!!

I know I'm long overdue for a regular old update. Mari turned 4 a few weeks ago and I just haven't had time or energy to update. We had Influenza during our birthday weeks (we are 10 days apart) and then Mari had a streak of really horrible behavior, complicated by some health issues on my end that were leaving me worried and drained......anywhoo. Moving on.

So I'll have to do a separate post on Mari's birthday. I think I still owe you posts on Halloween, Christmas, etc etc etc. Um, yeah.... Sorry!

But this update is just a Mari update.

Brains:
I don't know where to start with this one. Mari can read! I'm talking, really really read. She is only behind one other kid in her class on the reading chart (and most of the kids are going into K this year) and she is miles ahead of most in her class. I knew she was doing great but when I took time to look at the chart in her classroom, I didn't realize that she was doing THAT well. She has finished her set of 10 preschool books and is now in book #4 (of 8) in her K books. She can read most Level 1 I-Can-Read books with only a little assistance on some odd words. It has been amazing to watch this process. She gets SO excited when she reads, I love to see her so proud of herself.

She has also come a long way with her writing....she very rarely gets any letters backwards and is even starting to be legible in cursive (I still am not sure how I feel about preschoolers learning cursive but it doesn't seem to hurt her). She can count easily to 100 (and count, not just recite) and recognizes most of those numbers. When she writes her numbers, she does very well until she gets to about 14 and then she starts writing them backwards (15=51, 16=61, etc).

She can draw circles, squares, and triangles (her pediatrician acted like triangles were a big deal??) She love love loves doing dot-to-dot puzzles and she has a new book of "spot the differences". She has been waking up early in the morning (like around 5!) and I'll find her sitting on the couch with a pencil in her hand and a workbook open "doing her homework."

I love my little nerd.

I had thought about asking to place her in Kindergarten this year. She's at a private Christian school that goes up to 6th grade. Her pediatrician also suggested that I petition the public school to let her in this year because she is going to be so bored. I'm still deciding whether to talk to the public schools or not (about where she will fit next year) but I think I'm going to leave her where she is at. She LOVES her teachers now and she has never had the same teacher for more than a few months. I'd love to give her the stability of keeping those teachers for another year. They will continue to progress her at her own pace, so I don't have to worry about her slowing down this year. Also, while I like her being with older kids to challenge her, I think she's at a point where she is self-motivated enough that I want to give her the advantage of not being the youngest in the class anymore. So we will see where this year leads us.....

Activities:
Mari started ballet class a few weeks ago. I found an 8 week class for a very very good price that is held at a local elementary school. I thought she'd enjoy it but didn't have high expectations because gymnastics was a disaster (which surprised me because of her acute case of "bouncitis"). I have been shocked! She LOVES it. It is the highlight of her week. She asks every morning if it's ballet day. She practices every night what she's learned and checks on her leotard and shoes constantly. She focuses in class and tries so hard. We are already exploring options for a more permanent ballet class!

Some of my coworkers got Mari a guitar and a microphone for her birthday. The entertainment level in our house went to a whole new level. Mari stages large-scale concerts in our living room, complete with an audience of stuffed animals. Sometimes it's songs she knows, sometimes she makes them up as she goes, sometimes we hook the MP3 into the mike amp to do karaoke, and sometimes she tells stories with different voices and sound effects. She is a real ham.

Behavior:
I've been told that 4 is so much better than 3. I was in serious doubt the first couple weeks but now I'm getting a sense of new confidence and a whole new level of cooperation. First, Mari has actually stopped herself in the middle of tantrums a couple of times and told herself to calm down!!!!!! She is able to reason through situations when I ask her what the consequences will be depending on which action she chooses....it took a lot of effort on my part to instill in her the fact that Mommy WILL follow through with the consequences. That involved missing a movie with friends one time and missing a playdate (among other smaller things). She now knows that I stick to my guns and she is testing me so much less these days.

Just in the past week we've done the following: planted some plants, made candy sushi, made chocolate chip cookies, stomped in rain puddles, watched movies together, had 2 picnics, watched a softball game, she's had an Easter party at school, she's getting ready to have a taco party at school......it's just been a week of happiness all around.

And she learned to snap her fingers this morning. SNAP!

Storm Chasers we are not....

With severe weather in our area, and me being an absolute wreck when there is even a hint of bad weather coming, we prepared to spend our Saturday indoors. I had planned for us to just stay in our PJs all day and laze about listening to the torrential downpours. Unfortunately, a tornado watch was issued during naptime and quickly changed to multiple tornado watches all around us. We tried to stay busy in order to not freak out. In the end, there were possible tornados that touched down way too close to my house for comfort (but thankfully, no one was injured). Strangely, while we had some pretty good storms, they came nowhere close to some of the intense storms we've experienced before, so I'm a little freaked out that it got so bad so close. Yikes!

Here's how we passed our day....

First, Mari decided that she would pack her backpack for Kindergarten and sit at the window, doing some songwriting, while waiting on the bus. I didn't have the heart to tell her that it will be 16 more months before that school bus comes.... Mari's been asking to grow something for weeks, so I bought some supplies and we got busy planting a little indoor garden. She took her job very seriously. I tried to pick things that could be "started" indoors (not that we'll ever make it to transplanting them) and that wouldn't take too long to sprout. Most of these should start sprouting in 7-14 days....hopefully, she won't lose interest by then. We planted peas, cat grass, impatiens, marigolds, and "mixed-up" flowers.

Our little garden....I put them in bins to make it easy to move them out of the cats' reach when we are not home.

After doing some planting, Mari decided she needed to do some watercolors...which kept her occupied just long enough for me to clean up the planting mess.

At snack time, she asked me for a fruit rollup, so I decided to try out a new project that I saw online.

Amazing what you can do with a fruit rollup, a rice krispy treat, and some gummies.....candy sushi!! Let's just say, I found them more fun to make than to eat. Mari enjoyed them though! Back out to check on the plants for the 500th time.....nothing growing yet. And it's been almost 2 hours!!! Sigh. Spent a little time playing with Mommy's Nook....reading Nat Geo for Little Kids. Watched a little TV with the company of a best buddy. And all this before suppertime. Still rumbling outside. This could be a long storm season.