Daycare Overachievers

Over the last few weeks Mia's daycare has introduced color weeks as a way to help them learn their colors. They wanted the kids to wear as much of the color of the week as possible even if it was just  part of the pattern of the shirt or on a sock. They started with blue week. We didn't know about it on Monday (Peter had picked her up the previous Friday), so when I found out about it I was a little upset that we missed day one. So when I dropped her off on Tuesday she was pretty much all blue. The teachers said they loved that we got so involved and that we got the parent participation award for the year!

Little did they know, I take theme weeks very seriously!

After blue week, came red week! We had this one down, no problem! (Thanks Cousin Kat/Aunt Katie!) 

Tuesday (she wasn't there on Monday.

Wednesday

Thursday - see, even my shoes are red!

Friday - she was taking medicine because the day before she was
sent home with a fever that, I'm pretty sure, was due to teething. 

 This week's color is yellow, and unfortunately, we have not done so well. I searched through every article of clothing and we had, maybe, two or three things that yellow was even remotely involved in. Oh well! We'll do better next week. (I think the color wheel goes to green!)

Glasses!

This summer Peter and his mom thought we should take Nate to the eye doctor because he had a hard time focusing on things that were far away. And Peter had a 10+ year old prescription that he figured should be updated, so I figured we might as well send them both to my eye doctor. Well, turns out Nate is actually a little far-sighted! So the doctor suggested that he gets some glasses to wear when reading, playing video games, etc. He's not so far sighted that he needs to wear them all the time, but enough that we want to take this route and hopefully he will grow out of it in the next couple years.

He's such a big boy now! And so excited about his new glasses! He really wanted the round ones (I think because the characters in all of the books that he reads wear round glasses) but they were either too small or too big. So we got him excited to choose his color. He loved the red! And he actually does a pretty good job of wearing them when he is supposed to.

Peter also got a new prescription. The doctor just told him to wear them all the time for the first few weeks and then he cold wear them until he got a little more used to them. I don't think he's there quite yet, but he's doing pretty well. He was kind of upset because he had been the only one of his siblings that didn't have to wear glasses. Not anymore - I guess this is what getting older looks like!

Newbies - they don't look at all alike, do they?

 So now we all wear glasses! Well, except Mia, and we will just keep our fingers crossed about her!

One Year!

One Year stats
Height:  29.75” (60^th percentile)

Weight:  19lbs 10oz (40^th percentile)

Happy girl!

Hair: Still red, still commented on. We even got some warning from other non-ginger parents of a ginger, that it will continue well into the school age years. It’s getting longer though, and thicker. One of her doctors even commented on how she has more hair than a lot of other kids her age. Too bad she doesn’t like me put anything in it! Her teachers like to call her “Brave” after the girl from the movie Brave (they couldn’t remember her name) and “Pippi”. I guess they think her personality fits her hair.

Teeth: She got one more tooth on the top, but that second tooth on the top is causing us some major problems! It has been on the verge of breaking through for what seems like months! Just come out!

Eating: She is still a big eater! She seemed to be getting a bit of a Buddha belly so we were worried she had gained a few pounds since we were last at the doctor’s office (a couple weeks ago), but obviously that is not an issue. Her daycare has said that she out eats everyone, and that they wish all of their kids would eat like her.

Sleeping: This has been a bit of an issue. We started out OK, but then something came up, and something else came up, and we were just so tired that we just wanted to sleep… But last night we started again and today at the doctor we got some good pointers for ways to get her to not associate going to sleep with feeding and hopefully that will make her sleep a little longer.

Walking: She started walking right around 10 months and never looked back! She can kind of run when she really wants to, and is on stable ground. When she started daycare, and when it started getting colder, she had to start wearing shoes and she doesn’t seem to mind them too much unless they are hard soles when her method of walking has to change.

Talking: She is definitely saying “Mama” and “Dada”. Sometimes she says variations like “Mommy” or “Mom”, etc. Other than that it is hard to say. Sometimes she repeats things that sound exactly like something you just said, or very close to words that would be an appropriate response to a question you just said. My brother could have sworn she said “cup” when we were in New Jersey. At the doctor’s office today she wanted to get down and walk around (of course) and it sounded almost exactly like she said “No, let me go!” So, who knows; some of it may be real, some of it may be a parent’s wishful thinking, but our doctor did say she thought she was advanced in her talking skills. And at the very least she most definitely understands a lot of what we are saying and responds accordingly.

Daycare: Mia started daycare the Monday after Thanksgiving. We found out at the beginning of November that Peter’s mom (through doctor’s orders) is no longer able to pick up the kids. So Mia for sure is no longer able to stay with Jack and Dianne on a full time basis. We signed her up in a daycare that we had looked at last year when we were looking for part-time stuff for Nate. We liked them, but they don’t have a part time option. Our school district contracts with them for Pre-K and the Pre-K director says they are really great, and they have a five (out of five) star rating, so they come well recommended. We looked at the Infant room and the Wobbler (young Toddler) room, and knew since she was so close to her birthday, is so smart and was already walking, that we should just go ahead and start her in the Wobbler room. When we first started we were kind of unsure about it. We got off to a little bit of a rocky start, but I think a lot of that was just not knowing exactly what we were supposed to do every day for pick up and drop off, but it got better pretty quickly. Now her teachers (and pretty much everyone else that works there) just love her. They always tell us how they wish they had a class full of Mias. She hasn’t been there for almost three weeks because I was on vacation for the first two, and Peter is on vacation most of this week, and her teacher has texted us multiple times asking when their Mamma Mia is going to be back. I’m sure they do this for everyone to make the parents feel like their kids are loved, but I like to think that they really mean it for my little girl!

Nate: As usual it is up and down between these two. He really seems to like all of her new Christmas and birthday toys, but he doesn’t always want to share them with her.  But there are some sweet points. He has really liked feeding her the past couple months (even though she can mostly feed herself), and he just likes to look after her. When he’s not pushing her down anyway.

December

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

I cannot believe that it has been one full year with this little girl! Parts of it seemed to go by super slow (see my pumping post), but in general it has gone by crazy fast. She really does seem to be the perfect (final) addition to our family and I can’t wait to see where she goes from here, and who she grows to be.