March- Monthly Recap

Let's see...

Curriculum:
Not a complete fail, but partial. All on my part. They had a good time with the safari stuff that we got to do, but there is still half the month left. It took me something like ten days to find the curriculum book and by then we had gotten out of the habit of doing it. I don't feel like our time has been wasted though. We've completely rearranged the playroom and they are working on helping me figure out which toys they want down and which should be rotated out. Changing just a few things makes it a whole new room for them and it's nice to be able to SEE the toys in different places so you know what you want to play with.

And we're still doing lots of singing and coloring and talking about letters and learning. Teamwork, manners... our time is well spent. But the licensed teacher in me sometimes thinks I need more product to take home. I keep telling myself that clashes with my actual philosophy of the way small children learn. :) I confuse myself sometimes.

April is going to be devoted to finishing safari work, dinosaur and mammal recap, and pulling out some generic spring projects if we have time. We'll also probably pull out the water table, get more sand, and spend as much time as possible in the yard before it gets crazy hot. Oh, and maybe have a random egg hunt since I never got around to doing one. The weather was not cooperating the day I wanted to do it and then I got thrown off.

Comings and Goings:
Flik has moved on to his new place, although we still see him at t-ball practice. He's doing well, of course. And yesterday was Boo and Sully's last day here. It's very strange that O'Malley and Lilo are the only big kids by more than a year. Next in age is Silvermist and she's just 20 months. It's becoming a little kid place all of a sudden. Lilo will be leaving at the end of the school year and I'm actually thinking of sending O'Malley in the fall to one of my friends who does all older kids, at least part-time.

Kanga is on maternity leave with baby Tigger for the next couple weeks and Mrs. Potts (Chip and Belle's mama) is here filling in for her. It's sort of rocked Chip's world a bit. He's fine when she's not here, and he's fine when he's home and it's just them. However, he doesn't like to nap here when his mom is working, and likes to hang on her leg and cry when she's dealing with the babies. Sharing is hard work.

OH! And here is baby Tigger!


Are those cheeks not insane? I want to eat him with a spoon and sniff his neck folds. If I can find his neck... :) And we have official word- he does actually weigh more than Hercules at this point. It will be very interesting to see how the two of them compare as they get bigger.

I guess that's all I can think of for now. Happy spring!

Friday Focus- Sully

James P. Sullivan, to be exact. :) Small brother of Boo, fabulous dark hair and blue eyes, happy sunny boy. I keep thinking he's older than he is, because he's been walking for weeks now and just motors around happily.

A lot of the kids decide that one of us is their primary caregiver. Sometimes it happens from day one and sometimes it's an all-of-a-sudden thing. We were starting to notice that Sully was definitely becoming one of Kanga's people. He tolerated me okay and let me feed him and talk to him, but he watched her the whole time and she was always having to be really careful stepping backwards because he was usually standing right.there.behind.her so he could love her more closely.

Then he decided he just really doesn't like me much right now. Kanga is his one true love. She would tell him, "Honey, I love you, but we're not exclusive, and right now I'm on a date with Tinkerbell... she's hungry too..." Having me fix his problems doesn't really fix it, because it's me. He wants her. :)

He was very angry the other day because she was attending to one of the others, and SO relieved when he got to leap into her arms.

She snuggled with him for awhile, and then pregnant lady had to pee. And I had to hold him for a minute. And he wasn't quite so happy in my arms.

Sometimes if she is nowhere in sight he will let me hold him. But definitely he will NOT leave Kanga and come to me happily. He is hers. :)

Mobile Boy!

I cannot believe Sully is already walking. Nine months old and watch out world!! :)

Christmas Slideshow

Every year for Christmas I do slideshows for the parents. Usually it's got one show with all the pictures of their child, and then a sort of "best-of" with a couple pictures of each child so they can see playmates and more of what goes on during the day. There was just a new update to iLife, so I can finally turn them into movies and put them on the blog!

Here's the favorites collection- maybe not all necessarily the BEST pictures, but lots of the ones that make me smile.

Belated Introductions

We have Tinkerbell!! We have had her since, oh, October. I've been woefully neglectful of the blogging lately. And actually that is why I haven't blogged about other stuff as much, because I keep thinking I shouldn't talk about other things before I introduce Tink.

Tink has fabulous dimples and awesome chubby cheeks. And not so much hair. :) Her mama laments this fact and wants to borrow some of Sully's, on account of he has tons to spare. Funny story about that~ Boo, Sully's big sister, is really good with all the little babies. She was talking to Tinkerbell and looked at me with this sort of perplexed, it's-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue face and said... "What is... wrong?... with her?" I could tell it was the same kind of look that I get on my face when I can't place what's different about somebody- did they get glasses? a haircut? what's the deal?

So I explained that she looks very different from your brother, huh? Sully has lots of hair and Tinkerbell doesn't have very much, and so that is why her face looks different.

Boo is smart. She totally got it, and then got worried. "She is still VERY cute." :) She's so adorable to realize that she needed to tell us she wasn't trying to be offensive. Practically impossible, by the way. Boo is never rude.

But back to Tink, since I've derailed yet again.

She has been here awhile and is not even the youngest baby anymore, so I have LOTS of catching up to do! Three months worth of pictures, which I can't even begin to do justice to in one post. But here are a few of my favorites:

O'Malley loves her. "Mommy! She yike me a YOT! I hep FEED her!"

Wish I had gotten a bit closer to catch more dimple, but isn't the smile awesome?

Sweet little pumpkin!!