Vestigial

We traveled last weekend. We drove to New Orleans for a wedding. The wedding was lovely. The children were delightful. We couldn't have been more proud of their behavior. We very much enjoyed visiting with family.

One morning while enjoying the free continental breakfast at the hotel Michael was sitting in my lap and wiggling a bit as five year olds are prone to do. His tailbone was grinding into my leg rather painfully and I asked him to sit still because his tailbone was hurting me. He looked at me like I was crazy. I found myself explaining vestigial body parts to him. My cousins and I thought of wisdom teeth, and appendixes in addition to the tailbone and then conversation moved elsewhere.

I should have known Michael was deep in thought because, in retrospect, he was uncharacteristically quiet, but I was distracted with visiting. Several minutes later he popped in with this thoughtful insight... "Mama, you know what else is vestigial?" At my prompt of, "Yes sweetheart?" he replied, "Newspapers!" He then earnestly supported his assertion with rather well thought out examples of all the other ways we can learn things today. We all burst out laughing as I tried to defend newspapers to my son.

Although we had obviously missed some subtleties as we explained the meaning of "vestigial" to Michael I was astonished at his ability to swiftly comprehend a rather abstract concept and then promptly turn around and apply the newly gained knowledge to an entirely different context. Sometimes I wonder how I will ever keep up with him.

The End of Conveniently Scheduled Work Time

Gymnastics Camp is done. It was a lovely week of three hours to myself every morning. On the other hand, our homeschooling time was reduced by 80% so it's all trade offs I suppose. It will be nice to get back to doing all of our wonderful homeschooling activities this week.

I've enjoyed getting back to blogging somewhat and will try to post at least once or twice a week somehow. I have a couple of things I worked on last week queued up that I haven't had a chance to post yet. I'll try to get a set of verb picture cards I made put up tomorrow. I'm also almost done with a set of sorting/categories cards as well and I'll try to get that up later this week or next week.

I hope you all have a great week too!

FYI: Scholastic Dollar Deals Are Back

Scholastic has almost 2000 instantly downloadable teacher resource books and children's ebooks on sale for $1 each. The dollar deals expire 1/9/13. Teacher resource books and children's ebooks that work on word families work well for targeting sounds in final position. Phonics readers that address initial consonants work well for targeting sounds in initial position. And now I'm off to build a shopping cart for myself... Enjoy!

Edited to add: Scholastic has apparently changed their Teacher Express store since the last time I visited in an extremely annoying way. Now, instead of being able to preview pages from the books, clicking on the "See More" button simply brings up a bigger picture of the cover. This would be tolerable if their descriptions were more than 1-2 sentences each, but as it is, now I feel like I have hardly enough information to justify even a $1 purchase. I'm having to manually go to Amazon's website, search for the item, and hope there is a preview or comments there before deciding to purchase an item. I am very disappointed in the change and will be buying significantly fewer books as a result. (Thanks for listening to my rant. I feel marginally better.)

Simple Communication With Teachers and Parents

Rebecca at Adventures in Speech Pathology designed simple reminder strips to communicate with classroom teachers and parents. Simply download the free template and print the strips in advance. Then, at the end of each session fill out the strips with the students and send them back to the classroom. Tell the child to either give the strip to their teacher or to put it in their cubby/school bag. Or, give the child two strips and have them do both. It is a great way to communicate what you're working on to other adults in the child's life and perhaps recruit some helpers for additional speech practice.

Great Source of Free Speech and Language Worksheets

Heather's Speech Therapy has an amazing list of free speech and language worksheets to download. She has syllable wheels, most consonants in multiple positions in words and phrases, grammar and vocabulary worksheets, and some reward charts. All worksheets include color pictures of the target words. Most target words are 1-2 syllables and vary from simple syllable shapes and phonemes to complex ones. You should definitely check these out!

Corrections

My daughter has reached the age where she feels it is critically important to correct me all the time. Let's take some recent examples.

Me: Ava is three years old.
Ava: You mean three and a half, Mama.

Me: Let's put on your shorts.
Ava: You mean skirt, Mama.

Me: That's a lovely path you colored.
Ava: You mean arrow path, Mama.

My husband was taking a home video of Ava. They were discussing some coloring she had done in her coloring book. At one point, he corrected something she had said. She looked up from her coloring book and gave him a top class evil eye. "Turnaround is such fun," I thought when he showed me the video.

I'm so glad he caught that on tape. When's she's giving us the well-practiced version of that look at 16 I'll be able to refer to how she was practicing it at three. And I'll be able to pull out the video to prove it.

Hair

I've been having fun fixing Ava's hair for school. I bribe her to sit still with a little tv in the morning and we end up with a cute hair style that will last through nap and still look nice in the evening. It also keeps the hair back off her face.

She has very fine, thin hair though, and so finding hairstyles that will work has been challenging. Did you know there are entire blogs devoted to little girl hairstyles? I found one that has hairstyles that work for Ava and I've been doing a different one each day to try them out. I don't always get a picture, but here are a few we've tried since school started a couple of weeks ago.

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Welcome to September and enjoy your holiday weekend!

Quick Trivia

I'm pressed for time, and so in lieu of a full post here's five quick fairly random trivia facts about me.

1. I read an average sized paperback book in 3-4 hours. This sounds wonderful until you realize how quickly I can blow through a $40, 5-book series and how long I have to wait for the next installment to be published.
2. I'm a cat person. Aside from two years in a college dorm, I've never lived without a cat. Currently, we have four. (I also adore ferrets. I owned one in graduate school and refuse to get rid of the cage just in case we have room for another at some point in the future.)
3. When we were young, I once told a cousin that I was going to have eight children. I believe the assertion had something to do with why he should sit in the middle of the back seat and cede the preferred door seat to me. (Don't ask.) He likes to periodically ask me when I'm going to deliver the additional six children he had been promised.
4. I'm fairly short - 5'1". My first job post graduate school was in a middle school and the children would often mistake me for another student in the halls.
5. I have an inexplicable love of sharpies. I recently told my husband that a bouquet of sharpies would be much superior to a bouquet of flowers.

First Day of School Pictures - 2012

I've seen a ton of sweet first day of school pictures floating around the internet. I particularly liked this one and combined it with the idea of holding a sign. This year was the first year both children were heading off to preschool/pre-K at our local public school and so I decided that I would get it done this time. I printed off the "signs" using microsoft word the night before while the kids were in the bath. I dragged the children into the driveway, cajoled smiles from them with silly sentences, and took a few pics with my phone before loading them in the car. Then I used PicMonkey to edit the pictures and add the text.

We're off to see the family...

Well, we're off. As you read this imagine me in a minivan for 12+ hours with my mother and two preschool aged children and send good thoughts my way. I'll be taking a blogging hiatus for the next week or so, but I will be back late next week. Have a wonderful week and good luck to all of you that are preparing for the new school year that begins in a couple of weeks.

Date Nights

My husband and I have recently begun trying for regular date nights. We're aiming for about once a week. That pretty much means that instead of engaging in independent pursuits for an hour or so after putting the children to bed and before falling asleep exhausted we are trying to spend a couple of hours together. We've been picking out a movie to watch. We watched Salt and Knight and Day. Knight and Day was surprisingly enjoyable. Salt was fine although not spectacular. Last night we rewatched the first Bourne movie which we hadn't seen in years.

My first rule for picking out a movie is that I absolutely do not want it to make me cry. When I only get a couple of hours a week to escape into a fantasy world the last thing I want is to spend the experience getting put through an emotional wringer. That rules out dramas, war, romances, and most romantic comedies. I'm also not a huge fan of horror. That pretty much leaves action, action/comedies, and some sci-fi/fantasies. Given that I've seen about five non-children's movies in the last five years, that leaves plenty of movies to choose from.

It isn't exactly high-class entertainment or an elaborate "date", but it is some uninterrupted time spent snuggled up next to my favorite person in the world. That's all I need to make me happy.

Who's Right? - Driving / Parking Scenarios

Who has the right of way in this driving scenario?

My husband and I have different opinions about who has the right of way in a certain driving scenario. I would like to get your opinion (Not that I would ever go to my husband saying, "See, I was right. My readers say so...)

See my delightful, artist quality sketch of the following driving scenario:



Car A wants to turn right heading north. Car B also wants to head north. It will be a left turn for Car B. Car A has a yield sign at the intersection. Car B is in a left turn lane.

Now, we both agree on this much. If the light is red and no cars are coming from the N/S, Car A has the right of way. Car B definitely shouldn't be turning left on red.

If the light is green, and there is a left turn arrow that is also green Car B has the right of way (Car A should be looking at a red light with a yield sign). - True or False?

If the light is green, but Car B does not have a green arrow (therefore Car A should also have a green light and their yield sign) Car A has the right of way. - True or False?

We drive through an intersection just like this regularly. I really do want to know the answer to the true/false questions because just as much as I feel I'm right about my interpretation, my husband feels he's right about the opposite.

Parking Lot Irritation - Am I right to be irritated in this situation?

Our school's driveway/parking lot situation is a horseshoe (again, see amazing diagram). I'll admit, there are no signs indicating that the driveway is one-way. However, I get irritated whenever someone drives in the opposite direction from the arrows I've drawn in. Somehow, I feel like it is just understood that this is a one-way horseshoe. Is that just me? Am I grumbling at people in my mind without justification or do you see this as an obviously one-way situation as well?

Losing a Syllable: Bittersweet

Daddy has become Dad. Mama has become Mom. Michael articulates the single syllable distinctly and with a flavor of satisfaction. It feels right. He turned 4 1/2 a couple of weeks ago and I didn't even notice the half-year anniversary. He's getting older and more mature right on schedule. Somehow, I simultaneously enjoy hearing him call us by slightly more mature labels and feel a little twinge of sadness for the extra syllable I lost. I loved "Mama". At least I get to hold on to it a little while longer with Ava.

Holiday Weekend Hiatus

I've been doing daily posts for well over a year now. I enjoy the regular posting, however it is time for a brief hiatus. My cousin, who happens to be Michael's godmother, is in town for the extended holiday weekend. She comes every year to visit for the Memorial Day weekend and we all have a wonderful time. The children love her company and the extra attention. We usually go to the zoo, but the 100 degree temperatures predicted for the weekend may steer us towards indoor pursuits. Whatever we decide to do, it will be fun and relaxing. In the spirit of the holiday and visiting, I am going to skip writing posts until after the visit. I'll be back Wednesday.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend too!

The Beginning

Imagine a beautiful sunny evening in a crowded park. My husband and I are pushing the children on side by side swings surrounded by other small children and their parents. Michael calls back to me but I can't quite hear him and I ask him to speak up. And this is what he asked.

"Mama, how were the first people borned when there weren't any other people yet to born babies?"

Umm. Well, that question was a bit deeper than I had anticipated. And it didn't really seem like the best place to be discussing it. And, to be honest, I hadn't quite thought through how to answer that question with my preschooler.

After fumbling around a bit and not managing to answer the question at all I simply explained that it was a very smart question to ask and the answer was complicated and that we'd discuss it at home. He hasn't brought it up again yet, but I really do need to figure out what I'm going to say.

Website Recommendation: daddyread.com

If you're looking for an annotated list of recommended books to read to your children DaddyRead is a great place to find it. The website has informational articles on how to read to your kids, but the heart of the site is annotated lists of books to read aloud to children separated by recommended ages. There are lists of picture books for infants through second grade. There are lists of recommended read-aloud chapter books for preschool through third grade and up. There's even a list of recommended chapter books for reluctant readers.

I started with the list of read-aloud chapter books for preschoolers and reserved five of the recommended books from our local library. We started Moongobble: Dragon of Doom today. Michael is loving it. It makes Ava a bit wiggly, but as long as she's allowed to wander the room a bit she follows along too. The chapters are short and have a couple of black and white illustrations per chapter. We've finished 5 of 13 chapters. The book is the first in a series so we'll know where to go next if the children enjoy this first one all the way through.

Small anecdote

We were getting Michael (age 4 years, 5 months) ready for bed a couple of nights ago and completely out of the blue he initiates the following conversation:

Michael: 3 sevens is 20.
Us: No sweetheart, 3 sevens is 21.
Michael: But I counted and three sevens is 20.
Us: No baby, we promise - 3 sevens is 21.
Michael: (slight pause) ...then, two sevens and a six is 20.
Us: Stunned silence.

What have we learned exactly?

Michael has chronic nasal congestion. To be honest, we didn't prioritize it until recently. At first he had just started preschool and seemed to be sick all the time. Then it was winter and he still seemed to be sick all the time. However, this spring, we simply had to acknowledge something more was going on.

We took him to the pediatrician (paying our co-pay) and she referred us to an allergist and to an ENT. We went to the allergist (paying another, more expensive co-pay) who did skin testing. Many things showed up positive on that skin test but somehow I was still left with no clear answers. Then we went to the pediatric ENT (paying a third co-pay) who said that everything looked fairly normal. Come back in 3 months if pursuing the allergy hypothesis doesn't clear things up and he'll scope him to get a good look at his adenoids at that time.

So, following three different doctor visits, one allergy skin test, and two new medications we're left with some improvement in the nasal congestion and no concrete answers. I hate ambiguity.


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A year ago I did a post on therapy techniques for helping children move from one-word to two-word utterances.

Now I've Done It (Bad Speech Habit Acquired - Help!)

Ava has been doing so well with her blends. She went from simply eliminating the second consonant in an s-blend to being able to include both consonants almost every time. I was excited about that achievement and simply failed to notice that she began inserting a pretty prominent schwa to the end of the /s/. So, instead of saying "snow" or even "ssssssno," she's saying "suh no". (or "suh pin", "suh tep", etc...) I think it happened gradually and I just didn't catch it early. I really should have caught it, but I'm just not perfect. In fact, I'm only aware of it now because one of her speech teachers pointed it out to me. I was pretty embarassed. Now adding that schwa seems firmly ingrained in her motor planning for s-blends and I can't figure out how to get rid of it. Her therapist recommended shortening the /s/ and overemphasizing the second consonant when modeling, but that isn't helping.

Does anyone have any strategies they use under such circumstances?


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One year ago I reflected on my jealousy when watching other babies smile and the possible impact of oral apraxia on the infancies of my children.

Scholastic Teacher Express Dollar Downloads Are Back

Scholastic has a Teacher Express store where they have hundreds of teacher resource books available for purchase and immediate download in .pdf format. Several times a year they have a dollar download sale. Through Saturday (3-24-12) they have over 700 books available from $1 to $5 each. The vast majority of the books are only $1. This is a link to the dollar downloads sorted by price from lowest to highest. You can narrow the selections by grade or subject area. When you click on the book you can preview every page. The .pdf is immediately available for download and I love having the books in that format because I can easily print out whichever pages I want at the moment without having to drag a book to a photocopier.

Some of my favorites (in no particular order) are:

Little kids... Cut!
50 Learning Songs Sung To Your Favorite Tunes
Quick-and-Easy Learning Games: Phonics
Lift & Look Science Mini-Books and Manipulatives
Circle-Time Poetry: Math

Seriously, there are hundreds of these books available for $1 each right now. I lost a morning just browsing and adding things to my cart. Then, when I actually noticed that my cart total was over $70 I decided it was time to pare things down a bit. Ok, time to pare my selection down a lot.

Enjoy the sale.

(I am in no way affiliated with Scholastic, or reimbursed by Scholastic in any way for mentioning Teacher Express or their sale.)

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One year ago, I was reveling in Ava's transition to speaking in two-word utterances. What a difference a year has made. I am grateful every day.