M is for Mommy

August 18, 2010

Again, sorry with the late post, I felt so sick last night, and my wrist was in such pain I didn't even open my computer to check email.  I went to bed early after watching a bit of TV, and today I feel much better, more ready to type and think and teach.

So M day was discombobulated to say the least.  My cousin and her two boys were supposed to come over but they had car troubles, so it was a no go.  That sort of messed up the day to start.  Then Mommy not feeling well meant that things were a little less organized.  We spent a lot of time outside being paleontologists in the sandbox, and they told me all about the types of dinosaurs they know about.  They know so much.  We talked about marsupials, mammals, and amphibians, and the characteristics that are associated with each animal type.  Eliza loves telling me about marsupials.  When we got up we sang all the letter sounds, and found the letter M on the quilt.  We drew the letter M in the carpet, but we didn't do the letter poster till before bed.  We talked about M words all day, and the kids came up with some great ones.  We played with the play dough for awhile but did no assisted writing or coloring, as my wrist hurt too much to do it.  We did spend some time matching upper and lower case letters.  And Rich had gotten the kids some flashcards of all types.  We used to shape ones to talk about shape attributes.  The color ones were great, the kids matched the items of the same color, sorted them.  We matched the color names on the back, spelled the colors and talked about the pictures that showed the color.  I had them tell me other things that were the same color.  CJ's favorite color is orange, and Eliza's is pink, so we had to add pink cards since they did not include them in the set.  We used the number cards to order.  We found the card with a picture of one thing first, two things second, and so on to number 20.  Then CJ messed them up and did it himself, using the number rather than the picture.  He can read numbers up to 50 consistently.  He also recognizes the number 100 since it is in many of his books.  We found M in lots of their books and made M with our fingers and hands.

We made mocha milk and mini muffins for breakfast.  They ate a ton of them!  We ate some leftover macaroni and cheese for lunch.  Dinner was mushroom crusted pork, and vegetables mornay, which is just a fancy was of saying in a cheesy milk sauce.  We had M & M's too, because it is M day of course!  The best part of the day though, is this is the first day CJ has had no potty accidents!  He is doing it all by himself too.  He pulls his pants and underpants down, fixes the potty and sits down.  He goes, only needs help if I need to wipe him from poop.  He empties the potty, wipes the seat if he dripped on it, and even washes his hands.  All I have to do is watch to see if he needs me.  This kid like independence.  He does things in his own time, always has, I think always will.  Eliza wants to use the potty a lot, and does pretty well sometimes.  But lately it has been, I pooped in my diaper I need to use the potty.  She doesn't seem to understand the potty is for BEFORE you go in the diaper.  I just am so glad to be changing fewer diapers, which means I have to wash them less.  I am so ready to be done with the cloth diapers during the day.  Still at night and nap of course, but we are making huge strides.

One of the best things the kids told me today was their favorite M word is Mommy, because we love Mommy and she loves us, and she is amazing.  And Eliza said I was beautiful too.  If only you could hear her say it though, she sticks her head out and bends a little and says BEE-U-tee-ful!!  With lots of emphasis and smiles.  How can any day be bad when I get to be Mommy to them!  Some days it is a miracle that we all survive the day, but it is so worth it every time they learn something new, and every time they ask a good question or tell me how much they love me.  I wore a Sesame Street T shirt yesterday and CJ told me all of the friend's names.  I asked where they live, and he told me.  I asked him if Sesame Street is a good place to live, and he said yes, but do you know what place is the best place to live?  I asked him where, and he said here Mommy in our house, because you and Daddy and Eliza are here.  How awesome is that?