A Kid Update

It's been a while since I've done an update on the big kids, so I thought I should do one. That way, when I've forgotten what they were doing at this stage, I can look back here and remember.

Madelyn:


Madelyn is really reading now, at least when she's in the mood to do it. She can't pick up an encyclopedia and read for content, but she can definitely read simple kids' books. She's also been really interested in spelling, and her handwriting is getting MUCH neater. She still prefers capital letters to lowercase, but her writing is very legible now. She started tennis lessons today. I'm interested to see if she enjoys this. She was disappointed that we didn't do soccer again, but I was able to sign Madelyn and Pierce up for the same tennis lesson. The ease of that won over her desire to do soccer again. We've been swimming a lot and she just finished up her group swimming lessons. She LOVES swimming and has been trying so hard to learn how to really swim that we've signed her up for some private lessons. We'll see if that helps her learn some strokes.

Pierce:



Pierce has really developed an interest in learning his numbers, letters, letter sounds, and writing his letters. This has all just happened in the last month, but he knows all of the letter sounds, even if he can't think of the name of the letter itself. So, if I show him an "F", he'll sometimes tell me it's an "F", but he will often just say, "FFFFFFFFFFFFF" (saying the "F" sound). Pierce also just finished his swim lessons. Those did not go very smoothly for the first few lessons, but the last few went very well. We've also signed him up for private lessons and he did fabulously with the first one. He loves going to the pool, too, and as I mentioned, he's taking tennis lessons with Madelyn. He is still very sensitive and almost always shows concern for others. He's really showing a love for Isabel except when she ventures over to his trains. Then, he usually says, "Mom, I think she's hungry." He loves to play with his trains and is very creative. I won't be surprised if he decides acting/drama is his thing.

Isabel:



I apologize for the quality of this photo, but this is what most pictures of Isabel look like. I think a nice camera might be on my Christmas wish list. She's just gotten over her first stomach bug. No vomiting involved, but there were definitely many interesting diapers. Her upper gums are bulging right now, but I can't tell if a tooth has broken through or not. She won't let me investigate very long because she clamps down on my finger as soon as I start feeling around in her mouth. Weird. I don't know why she doesn't like that. Oh, she loves eating paper. I don't think the other kids liked it as much, but I feel like it is always in her mouth. I really do try to keep it out of her reach, but it's just harder with Madelyn and Pierce always using it.