Update on the Monkeys

Rachel is thriving in school and absolutely loves it.  She earned an outstanding citizenship award for the first term and the teacher had lots of good things to say about Rachel.  When Rachel was student of the week, Mrs. Caha let her read the class a book and lead the class during calendar time, share time, etc. and Mrs. Caha said that she could have left to run an errand and she was pretty sure the class would have run very smoothly under Rachel's direction.  She is brave, confident, outgoing, and makes friends easily.  She is very sweet and helpful most of the time, but she has her moments when she is disrespectful, whiny, and irrational (mostly just at home).  Last month, I started a "nice talking jar" for Rachel and everyday, she had 15 puff balls automatically to start the day but if she didn't talk nicely, I would just count down to 14, 13, etc. and however many were left at the end of the day, she could put in her jar.  Once the jar was full, she could get one of those Beenie Boo stuffed animals (she and her cousin love these, but they are not cute in my opinion).  It really helped and was a successful little system for her and helped us get in some better habits.  Rachel does really well with positive praise often, so I try my hardest to recognize when she is doing something good and I try to give her good consequences too, instead of only bad consequences.

She is also taking the bus home from school!  Crazy, right!  I'm pretty sure that at one time or another I said that I'd never let my Kindergartener ride the bus.  And once again, I eat my words in the parenting department.  The pick up line was a horrendous system for us - usually interrupting Kendall's nap time and Rachel had to wait in line for 10-15 minutes before I got to the front of the line.  Her little buddies she was standing by were not my favorite, and she was coming home with all sorts weird stories from the pick up line.  So now she rides the bus and sits by her best friend, Holly, and Holly's big sister.  Rachel had been begging to ride the bus, so it worked out to let her ride it just on the way home from school.  We've recruited lots of the neighborhood kids, so now there are lots of kids that ride the bus all together.  Rachel is also participating in the school's choir and goes to practice right after school twice a week (so nice that it is free!), and she is also doing tennis lessons, which she really enjoys and Coach Ray is so fun with the little girls.

Andrew is growing like a weed and makes us laugh everyday.  I don't know how to describe it, but we just think he's dang funny.  I hope he keeps his good sense of humor.  We have a rule in our house that we can only say potty words in the bathroom, and that they shouldn't be used to make jokes.  Well, Andrew made up a repetitive song, "We only say potty words in the bathroom.." and if he's singing it IN the bathroom, then all the potty words become part of his song, "...poo poo, pee pee, bum bum, naked."  And occasionally, I'll watch him go into the bathroom just so he can say the potty words.  It cracks me up.  Last month he participated in a class through the city called "Play Along Pals", and it was good to have a special little class just for him (Kendall also enjoyed the class and thought it was for her).  Andrew has struggled with the transition to the new nursery, and I'm convinced it's because he misses Grandpa Rod and his best buddy, Maddox!  He gets whiny and tearful now so we're trying to help him through that.  He starts Sunbeams in January, so maybe that will be better since he'll get a little more structure and get to see Rachel.

Kendall hasn't been feeling well this month, so she's been off a little bit.  She once was my best sleeper, and now she wakes up usually once a night and it's hard to figure out what she needs to put her back to sleep (she is not a cuddler, so that doesn't work).  This all started when she got a double ear infection and it took me awhile to get it figured out before I took her to the doctor to get some medication (this was the first time she got sick and needed medicine).  She also got 4 new teeth in the back this month (1st year molars), and has had 2 different colds this month.  She has been whiny and has wanted me to hold her and haul her around.  It is making for one tired mama!  It all started back when she turned 1 and we switched to whole milk.  We were desperate and decided to try giving her soy milk, and it has made all the difference in the world!!  She is back to sleeping all the way through the night and is so much happier (we started this 3 days ago).  Hallelujah!

At 6:30am, I found Andrew watching daddy move rocks.  What a big helper!  :)