for the record

This post is all about how my kids are doing in school and in life. I shamelessly brag about them. I can do that because it's my blog.

Lily is still dancing. She sends me mixed messages about how she is really feeling about it. I know she desperately wants to be a on a big stage, in a fancy costume in front of large crowds. I just don't know if she wants to learn to dance to make that happen. We keep going every week. And I question her about her desire to go every week too. We have a scale from 1-3, 1 being she doesn't like it; 2 being it's okay but I don't always feel like going; 3 being she loves it. The first time I asked her it was a 2...then a 3 the next week. And last week after class she was at a 5. So, I must dig through her room once again to find all of her dancing clothes (yes, I know, she should be the one to do that...but exactly when I'm not sure).

We had parent teacher conferences for the kids last month. I wanted to share a few tidbits on the blog so that I can remember later. Lily is doing well is school. She loves to read and write. Her teacher is pretty convinced she will be a famous writer someday. She said that she gave the kids an assignment to write a story, but to limit it to two pages. Lily wrote eight. Her teacher also said that Lily sneaks her white board out of her desk during math to write stories and draw pictures instead of pay attention. I hope we can encourage her to focus on math in math class. As the concepts become more difficult, it will be harder for Lily to just skate by without paying attention.

Drew also had his conference. His teacher said that he is a leader in the class and sometimes directs their play time. I think that's so fascinating because he spends his play time at home being ruled by an iron fist named Lily. Anyway, she said that he does well with the other kids. He still is not remembering many of his letters by sight for some reason, but he can memorize a book after hearing it only a couple of times. I hope that the letter learning will come along before kindergarten. Or maybe he'll skip straight to reading, like I did. Interestingly enough, where Lily can't pay attention to math, Drew is really into the numbers game. He counted objects to 33 during his skills test...Impressive, I thought.

The news from Julianna's world is good. She can finally get herself on the toilet. My life has changed because of this new skill. I can send her to the bathroom without me. Hooray!

Julianna has really shown a lot of interest in writing and drawing recently. She sits at the kitchen table for long periods of time coloring and drawing pictures. (She draws a damn good person, with eyes, nose, hair, arms, legs and fingers, even!) She will be drawing away and then say, "Um, how do you 'pell 'daddy'?" or "How do you 'pell 'Taylor'? and then she goes to work "writing" the words I spell. So cute!

This week we stuck around Drew's classroom during the Halloween activities. I had baby Ben, so we hung out so he could have a little extra time with Shanna. Julianna participated in the classroom like she was one of the students. She did beautifully and Shanna says she's ready for preschool now. I am not ready to send her though. I'm going to keep her home until next school year. She's my last one! I want to hang on to my time with her for as long as possible.