Personality Updates

Adam is cruising in his school work. The lights are starting to really turn on with a bunch of things at once, and he's plowing through things that were hard to him even just a few days ago. Today I got the video camera out and he LOVED "showing off" for the camera and tried extra hard to do his best. I'll have to file that idea in the back of my head. He instantly became a TON more interested in what we were doing, and also lots more interested in doing a good job. Kept him thinking sharp.

For an art project today, I had the kids lay down on roll-paper and traced their bodies. They loved coloring themselves and hanging "their pictures" up in their rooms. That also went hand in hand with their lessons - they've been mastering their vocab for their body parts in the last few days' lessons.

Adam has been reallllllly chilled out as far as getting into things. I haven't had to hide EVERYTHING from him lately, and there have been no more causes for the carpet-shampooer to come out in the last few weeks. He's doing great all the way around. He's very much a perfectionist with his schoolwork and toys. Everything has to be just so. (Unless he's frustrated, and then nothing matters). He loves being the oldest and being the most physically able to do things. He loves that he can cruise past his sister in his schoolwork (I do too!), and loves being the center of attention. He's a real showman. I'm going to have to find some magic tricks he can learn. That's right up his alley. I can sooo see him sitting the whole family down and having us watch his "show." I'm going to have to think up some other ways to capitalize on that part of his personality, especially for when he gets the hang of the whole English thing.

I've had a few recommendations as far as resources/videos for alphabet/letter sounds. If anyone else has any good ideas for ways to get the letters/sounds into Adam's head as painlessly as possible, I'd be very grateful for the suggestions...

Tonight putting the kids to bed Liana had a cow about something or other and wouldn't tell me what. All I knew was that she was mad at me about something. Talk about a personality switch. Well, not really. She's our snuggle-girl who is the most affectionate, but she has that meloncholy personality that gets her feelings hurt easily, gets upset rather easily, gets mad easily. *sigh*. In other words, we have our work cut out in teaching her how to not let those feelings control her. It wound up that a shirt that I laid out for Aleksa to wear tomorrow looked a lot like one that she has, so she thought it was hers and decided to get mad at me about it. It all ended well, but oy, she's a hard cookie sometimes. She's our easiest to parent and hardest to parent all bound into one little girl. She's also our smartest. If you say something, she'll remember it for the rest of time. That kind of a kid. Perfectionist to the Nth degree. (She was the one who insisted on her clothes being laid out tonight in the first place, if that helps complete the picture).

She's also pretty ambidextrous. I've caught her using her right hand to eat and write, though she usually favors her left. Very good artist too. When she colors a picture, all the colors match. She's got a great eye.

Aleksa is our little blondie as I've mentioned before. Today the older two were talking about something or other at the breakfast table, and then Aleksa piped up something completely off-topic and revealing that she had no idea what the other two were saying. Adam did the little "crazy" gesture with his finger and ear and when he did so, Aleksa's face fell a hundred miles. She sunk her head and started to cry. I haven't seen her actually get her feelings hurt before (I don't think!), so I scooped her up and held her until she felt better. I even wound up feeding her the rest of her breakfast. She needed some Mama tlc, and I was happy to have the opportunity to snuggle my little sweetie pie. Nothing like a tiny little girl with hurt feelings, (and clutching her Twinko Bear), to melt a mama's heart.

Long past my bedtime. Night!