Saturday, March 28, 2009

Back to the Blog World

Wow... 3 months, huh? It's been a whirlwind. We've still been trucking along with school, but have had a little trouble keeping up with everything with the new (very fussy) baby. Blogging has sort of fallen by the wayside.

We had Matthew's 4 year check up last week (about half a year late but had to wait for insurance to cover it). The doctor said he had a small fine motor delay because he couldn't hold the tiny little pen and write his name very legibly (he's used to fat markers at home). While I don't think 4 years old is really old enough to be behind in much of ANYTHING, I still figured that as long as he didn't protest, we'd work a little more on his writing and drawing. I found a John Deere letter coloring and sticker book at the dollar store (not the "we're going to end everything with .00 and call it a dollar store" but the "everything's a dollar" dollar store). He loves John Deere because they sponsor the zambonis at the arena where Daddy works, so it was perfect. He's had fun tracing letters in that today.

I've started doing some more focused preschool activities with the girls. They love to color so it's great to get them all at the table coloring and then use that time (provided Andrew is sleeping or at least content in his swing or bouncy seat) to read some of Matthew's books to all of them. The girls are learning to sit quietly for a little bit longer stretches as we do this, plus working on some fine motor skills at the same time ;-) We're learning lots of active songs and they're blowing my mind with how much they're picking up about letters. Matthew has an alphabet floor puzzle and it was all over the floor the other day and Jessica said, "Mommy, H - hhhhh, hhhhh, hhhhhh" (making the sound). Then Ashlyn said, "Yeah Mommy, wook (look), S - ssssssssssssssss". They got almost all of them right and were able to do the sounds. I was impressed because I didn't realize they knew so many letters.

Today Matthew was drawing a picture and he said, "I'm going to draw our family. Look, there's me, Daddy, Ashlyn, Jessica and Andrew on planet earth. And here's you, Mommy (points to a person on a completely different part of the picture). You're on Jupiter." Thanks, bud! He proceeded to tell me that Jupiter is the "bounciest" planet (so at least I was having fun) and that I had taken a rocket to get there. I guess it's good to know he doesn't think that's where I originated or something