The girls’ school held it’s Halloween party earlier this week. It was perfect for the young ones. They played games to win candies. They loved showing off their costumes!
Snow White (K) with one of her teachers.
Tinker Belle (J)
The Knight getting ready to pin the tail on the cat.
Little M - being very patient and quiet
Trying to amuse himself.
Little M’s 6-month stats:
Head: 17 1/4 in (50th percentile)
Height: 26 1/2 in (50th percentile)
Weight: 19 lbs (75th percentile)
He definitely leveled out from his 4-month check . All his wiggliness has caught up to him, even though he has started eating solids! In mid September, he had his first rice cereal with soy formula. The doctor suspects that his eczema may be exacerbated by milk and advised me to stop drinking milk for a while and observe any change. With this in mind, his first cereal was with soy formula. I didn’t really want to dig for my breast pump just to use breastmilk on the cereal. Call me lazy. The cereal with soy formula was a success though it didn’t last long. When the soy formula expired, I bought regular milk-based formula. That was not a good idea. Within minutes of eating (he didn’t like it anyway), he developed a welt on his mouth. After that, he didn’t really like baby cereal anymore, not even with water.
I bought carrots baby food and with the initial what-the-heck-are-you-feeding-me reaction, he actually liked it. A few days of that and then on to peas. So now, he’s on to a few other veggies and loved all of them so far. Though now, I’m having a hard time finding one veggie ingredient baby food. We may start mixing fruit in pretty soon.
Oh, Little M started with just a few teaspoons once a day. Now he’s up to 2x a day, and now he can eat half a bottle! Good golly. So with all that extra source of calories and still leveling out in his growth chart, no wonder he’s back to waking up 3x a night. I thought it was because he was teething, which it may have started out that way, but after a month I thought something was up. This definitely explains it.
On Friday, as Big M approaches the minivan in the carpool lane, I noticed he had one extra backpack with him. I knew exactly what that meant. He was was the star student for the next week. He had a big smile in his face, and so did I.
Stat student is based on excellent behavior at school and so far since it started at the begging of the school year, they have been all girls. Every Friday, I ask Big M who has been chosen the star student. One Friday, he said, “Mommy, you will be so disappointed! Boys can’t be star student!” I reassured him that wasn’t true but he seemed to think so regardless.
He is actually the first boy to become one for this year and it just makes it doubly exciting! As a star student of the week, he gets to have a poster that he made up on the Kindergarten class hallway for all to see. He has use of a special backpack, bring a favorite toy, show his hobby/collection, tell everyone his favorite things to do and share his favorite book for the week.
On the way home, he just had to call his Daddy the special news. He worked hard for it and he deserves it.
Congrats!
I saw a face painting kit at the craft store while buying Halloween crafts, so I tried my hand at it. Unfortunately, I’m not very good at it. Fortunately, I’m good enough to amuse my 3 year olds…not so much my 5 year old, though. I wasn’t able to paint what he wanted me to do.
this is actually my best lady bug!
believe it or not, the black bug is supposed to be a spider. But it looks more like a tick.
my best work yet – a Lego logo. This boy is a Lego freak! By the way, I hear some people have already received their Lego holiday catalogs. Shhh. Don’t tell him because we don’t have one.
Everyday, Big M is getting better at sounding out words in order to read and to write. With proper motivation, he eagerly wrote to his Nana. I have no picture of the envelope but it was expertly decorated.
A few weeks ago, I put whatever Halloween decorations we have up. None of our neighbors have any decorations, but I thought maybe it was just too early. One day, when the kids were outside playing with the neighborhood kids, I asked the woman across from us what Halloween was like here in the past years. She said it was not a big thing because most of the people in our development are Asian. She even recommended that we go to a local church if we wanted to trick or treat. We were disappointed a little bit so I started researching where we could take the kids.
Several days later, I decided to ask another neighbor who has been in the neighborhood for more than 10 years. Alas, she said Halloween is a big thing with so many kids around. She said very few decorate their houses, but there are definitely tons of trick or treaters. Hooray! Great news! With so many kids who play outside daily, it’s definitely going to be fun.
Daddy and I decided that we should join in too this year. The kids are definitely excited about it.
Sleeping Beauty, Monkey, Gladiator, Tinker Belle, Knight
Sleeping Beauty, Geisha without make-up, Monkey, Tinker Bell, Knight
(J is in pink)
Big M had school project of dressing up a bear anyway he wants. The entire kindergarten students were to do it and they were to be displayed in the main hallway of the school Big M wanted a police man. Daddy and Big M worked on it, but while they were on break to think of how to do things, J found the scissors and started cutting the bear up. Big M found it and started shouting at the top of his lungs. Fortunately, the bear wasn’t dressed up yet. I had to run to the store and get another poster board. All were saved. Phew! We learned a great lesson that day – never leave important projects laying around!
At the end of the first day of school, Big M told me that kindergarten is so much fun. As a mom whose oldest just stepped into public school, I find myself having fun also. I don’t really know whether it would be this fun once the twins start kindergarten, at which point I’d have 3 children in elementary school. But for now, I’m having fun trying to be involved.
I eagerly joined the PTA and have already attended one general meeting. The meeting flew over my head, but that’s alright. I figure I have plenty of time to figure things out. I signed up to be an “at home” helper and have already done my first job – Big M brought the work home, which was to cut out left-over laminates from each of the students’ art work to be made into a book. I had fun doing it, I admit. I got to be the first of the parents to see what the kids have done. There is an opportunity to volunteer in the class’ home center. As much as that sounded to me, and a great opportunity to see how Big M socializes with his classmates, I didn’t sign up. A few hours at school with a baby by my side and playing/monitoring several kindergarteners at the same time is much too unpredictable for my liking. Perhaps when Little M goes to preschool.
By the way, I didn’t sign Daddy up for the PTA, but he is now part of the PTA for dads. He said he got suckered into it, but I know he doesn’t mind. He is a Watch D.O.G.S (Dads of Great Students). Father figures are encouraged to volunteer 1 day out of the year. He has already signed up for a day, and Big M can’t wait for it. Daddy gets to wear Watch D.O.G.S. shirt, and Big M has planned to wear his “My Dad is a Watch D.O.G.S” shirt.
Last week was the first parent-teacher conference. I signed up bright and early at 7am. That day, it was cold and dark and by the time I arrived at school, I was the 3rd car in the parking lot. What was I thinking signing up for 7 am, right? The whole event had to be coordinated. Daddy went to work late in order to drive the girls to school and stay with Big M until I got back home. Big M didn’t have school that day. I was very pleased to learn that Big M has really been a great student overall. For an active, alert, strong-willed kid, it’s pretty amazing. The teacher pointed out what he needs to work on (minor things about confusing some letter sounds) and that was it. I mentioned to her that Daddy and I are planning on recommending Big M to the gifted program to what hear what she had to say. I breached the subject by starting out with, “Ms. Shane, you probably haven’t noticed anything special about him because it may not be a sort of thing you see on a day to day school work, but we think he’s gifted.” To that Ms. Shane interrupted, “Well, that’s actually something we do see here. Things like different perspective on art work, etc.”
My mind started churning silently of course. What kind of different perspective could a kid have when asked to draw a giraffe, a cat, etc. I mean, come on. In preschool when they get done with the lessons, the kids get to draw whatever they want. And Big M draws pretty cool stuff like this. Is that enough of a different perspective? Of course I didn’t say any of this aloud. But she did say that not a lot of kindergarten pass the test because they are simply not mature enough to sit and take tests. She also said that it doesn’t hurt to try since we could try year after year if we wanted to.
Anyway, we plan on recommending him to the gifted program. The application is an in-depth one in which we need to provide evidence of the way he thinks, process information and any other things in order to provide “preponderance of information”. I’ve been scouring my blogs in order to do so. I’m so glad I have blogs, because if I had to rely on memory… well. Daddy and I will do our best to provide plenty of examples of giftedness and should he be chosen to proceed to assessment, we would be happy. If he doesn’t pass the assessment, we would be happy to try again the next year. No expectations. I think the important thing here is that we know Big M is smart and that we would keep looking for opportunities to provide him challenges. Our only wish is that we don’t influence him to be too much of a perfectionist. Perfectionism leads to under achievement. No one knows that better that Daddy and I.
Kindergarten is hard, but it also could be so fun for parents. 
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This is what happens when 3 year old twins get into being girly girls. They make up their baby brother.
(J in pink, K in white)
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J the Lady Bug
K the Kitty Cat
We took the kids to the church festival this weekend. They played games and the girls had their faces painted. They enjoyed telling everyone about their painted faces. It helped people especially with K since no one could quite figure out what she was.
J, Big M, Little M
Little M the Fireman
It was 90 degrees and so this little baby got exposed to the searing sun. I tried to keep him in my shadow for some shade but he may get some color because of this weekend. Baby, you came out fair skinned like Daddy but once you get your first golden tan there is no going back I’m afraid….all thanks to Mommy. But like your brother and sisters you’ll still be good looking.
Brothers
Then Little M got to sit down with us while we ate lunch at Firehouse Subs. He only played with toys, though I’m sure he would have loved what we were eating.
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