Anders and Ellis Update

I haven't talked about the kids' development and progress in a while, and there is so much to talk about. Anders gets more interesting every day. The language development is moving on an exponential curve at this point, with every morning bringing new thoughts. Even when he doesn't know the right word, he knows how to explain things. A week ago in the morning,he told me he had a spider ("arana") in his eye, meaning sleep had gotten in his eye. He also kept asking where everyone was: "Mommy, where Daddy go?" And when he saw Ellis this morning he said with great excitement, "Hi, Ellis! How you napping? Good?"

As with Ellis, I get a surge of excitement with every new phase of Anders' expressing himself. It is like solving a mystery as I learn more about what is going on in his brain. And it proves what a sweet child is in there.  But he is the embodiment of a 2-year old, with high highs and low lows. I refer to him as the girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead (albeit without the curl and the girl parts). When he is good he is charming and sweet and witty. He will grab my face and give me a big wet kiss followed by nosey-nosey. He will tell me he loves me. He will make little jokes and play or dance. He finds everything fun and exciting and throws his head back with a big, throaty, easy, delightful, cackling laugh that is contagious to all those who can hear it. He gets very interested in things, like a toy or drawing or a statue and will spend a lot of time with it.  Then he'll talk about it for a very long time, sometimes days later.

However, when he is bad he turns that direction quickly and dramatically. He screams, cries, kicks and can not be brought out of it easily. He is deaf to any explanation or solution. He escalates quickly, especially if Ellis tells him something he doesn't want to hear -- first to louder and louder screams and then to hitting. Half the time a hug fixes it. He clearly wants to be saved from himself. But the other half, he needs to be exhausted by his own fit. This is the reason I keep the crib (a good time-out location), and I resist giving up the baba. The baba is an excellent disciplinary tool when we are out of the house -- the threat of its removal or the promise of its return is often all we need to control him. My hope is that with more language, the downsides will get easier.

Also, he can now tell me he wants to be with me but is understanding when he can't and gets that I'm coming back. Mornings are no longer tear-filled and tragic. Yeay!!! His favorite phrases are: "I want to try" or "I want to do it!" He wants so much to be the big independent boy, except when it comes to having Mommy hold him. He is happy to have me carry him all day long.  He also imitates Ellis in most everything, from trying to do whatever she is doing or play with whatever she has to repeating everything she says.  And finally, it appears we are moving forward on potty training.  He is starting to get a sense of when he needs to go to the potty and gives me a warning, though often not much of one.  Still, it is very important progress.

Ellis for her part tries to play with him but is constantly befuddled by the fact that he won't follow her every (very detailed) instructions and how difficult he is to negotiate with. This also seems to be getting better, but needs more progress.

Her reading is improving daily. My favorite thing to see is how eagerly she takes it on. What she is not eager to do is sound out words. She has a ton of sight words and can often figure out the other words by the pictures, rhymes or context. When she can't, it pisses her off. Getting her to tackle a work she can't just guess can be quite the tussle, with sighs and groans and drama. Her math skills are also improving and are well-ahead of grade level without even trying, but somehow I feel like I am falling behind in teaching her there. It takes a lot to challenge her, and it is tough to push in an area when I know she is already ahead. But I know she would soak it up.

She is super sweet and randomly does things like below.  She wrote on the card "I am here for love," taped it to a pencil and marched around the house.  Then she made one for Anders.

We are also facing a problem with her being interested in trying everything. She took soccer over the fall and was the star of the class. Both her ball handling and her defensive skills are quite impressive. What she needs to work on is aggressively going after the ball. Now we are taking a break from soccer for the winter and she wants to take swimming, karate, and dance. Plus, she is such a dramatic kid that I want her to take a Broadway Song and Dance class at Imagination Stage. But I'd need to cut back to part-time work to make all of that possible. And this makes me feel guilty. She could do all of this and do all of it well, but my job duties get in the way. Argh.

She also continues to get our attention with her way of viewing things. We were talking about money, and she informed us that we were rich. We asked why she thought that and she pointed to all the money in her piggy bank and the fact that we have lots of toys. She also thought all of her friends were rich and was upset when we told her that one of her friends were straight-out poor. We explained that this was not an insult and how amazing her friend's parents are for moving here and working their butts off to make a better life for their kids. We talked about respecting all people, rich or poor, and we discussed how this was one of the teachings of many religions, including Christianity with which she is quite familiar (need to join a synagogue). Then she popped out with this one: "Lots of people believe in Jesus but don't follow his directions." Yup, nailed that one at 5 tender years of age.