Look what I've learned!

Caroline is really learning a lot at Primer School (well, it seems to me she is anyway). I tried and tried to help her learn her alphabet with these soft letters and she never took to it much (well, except for C and X -- X is a fun letter to say). But now she can identify all the letters and put them in order -- something I never could teach her to do -- I guess homeschooling is NOT in our future.
She can also spell her name, and she likes to write it everywhere now. I think it's funny how she (and, for that matter I guess, kids generally -- I've seen lots of little ones do this) is not fazed if she runs out of room on the page; she just writes the letters wherever she finds space for them. There's an "i" over here, and an "ne" over there, but no matter, she's still pleased as punch. But she did have enough room to spell her name here. (Like the glitter in her hair? That was a stocking stuffer, thanks Santa.)

I had never realized before how fun it is to watch your kid learn new things!

Eating at the big(ish) table

Julia's eating habits have been frustrating lately because she throws everything on the floor. Not just the food that she doesn't want -- it's everything, including drinks. As an experiment, I put her at the little table with Caroline to see if freeing her from the highchair and letting her sit at the table like a big girl would improve her table manners. So here's the two Miss Messes at their first breakfast together:


(Notice all the stickers and markings on the table and chairs? We got this little set for Caroline for Christmas when she was 1 1/2 years old. She has obviously given it lots of "love" since then.)

Both girls liked it -- here they are waving at each other:


And here is Juju's silly face:


So, that was fun, but as of now she's back in the highchair because the experiment didn't work -- she still threw food on the floor, and added plate tossing as well. Since I don't have a plate that suctions to the table, I'm now trying the "Love and Logic" method of saying empathetically when she starts launching the food off her tray, "Uh-oh. Looks like dinner is over since you have decided to throw food. We'll see you again when it's time for snack." Then I clean her off and send her on her way. That has worked better than the big girls' table -- I guess she wasn't quite ready for that. (Or was it that I wasn't quite ready to take on her plate tossing? Yeah, probably it's more the latter.)

Train up a child . . .

So it should come as no surprise if you know me at all that I'm a worrier. I always worry that I'm not doing good enough at whatever it is I'm doing -- school, work, social life, it's been that way forever. Lately, Caroline never wants to pray at bedtime so of course I worry that it's because of something wrong I've done. But I pray anyway in an attempt to model behavior for her, and tonight she broke in three times to say her own stuff, so maybe she wants to pray after all :)

First, it's short and sweet: "Dear God. Amen."

Later, it's some instructions: "God, please help Julia to stop screaming so much and stop throwing her food on the floor." I added a silent "SECOND" to that one in my head.

Finally, it's just sharing & being real, which I love: "Hey God, guess what? I learned to color in the lines today and used some pretty colors! Amen."

So, maybe she actually is learning the way she should go. God please bless our fumbling efforts to parent these girls . . . and please help me to worry less!