A portrait a week of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014'
Soren is becoming an egg-sandwhich making champion. I can't believe we are at 10 already! It's March - 3/12, 1/4 (I know - great math momma....) of the year. 2014 is cruzin'! Here are few other pics from our morning breakfast. It was a tough pick this week... but this expression is PRICELESS!
Awaiting bacon - and the excitement afterward. 'Bam - I wov bweakfasssst!!!'
Mornings and I have a love-hate relationship.
Since my schedule is never consistent and I work a lot of split shifts (go in by 7:30/8am, leave at noon, come back at 5:30/6 for a concert at 8 - get home by 11/11:30pm) - I suffer from 'work' jet lag quite a bit. So when my alarm clock goes off at 6 in the morning, I do press the snooze button a couple times and slowly hit the ground running.
However, some mornings - the sun shines in Soren's room and wakes him up just minutes before my alarm clock. And for some reason (this has been the case since he was born) I am waking up right as he starts walking in our bedroom (has anyone else experienced this? I wake up right as he does even though he is in a different room - super weird. No matter what time, day or night!). He usually walks, with a little morning, groggy toddle - over to my side of the bed and starts to climb up.
He usually needs just a little help, since he is still waking up - and asks 'cuddle with momma - pleeeeease'?'. Even though it might make me a couple minutes late for work - I am always willing to comply. Cuddles with momma?! Of course! This is my favorite thing about mornings - besides the coffee *wink.
On the days he doesn't wake up with us, he usually starts to rise by the time I start coffee. On these mornings, I'll hear him chatting in his bedroom between yawns and stretches 'dats a BIG BIG stretch *yawn!' Then I pour a cup of coffee, go in and set it down on his night stand while I say 'good morning!'. He always looks up with a giant grin and responds back with an enthusiastic 'good MORNING Momma!!! Mom - be careful, HOT coffee!'
So, yeah - mornings have become a favorite of mine. Groggy, exhausted - rest deprived, but I love them.
Good Morning!
Soren is going to Sands Montessori in the Fall!!! This deserves exclamations points for many reasons.
a) We had to camp out to get him in. There is a short lottery for Kindergarten, but not Pre-School. Because it is a specific pedagogy, it relies on small classroom sizes which translates to - not a whole lot of openings.
b) It's a Montessori program.
'b' is really the reason we are so excited. The Montessori method is something Rick and I have been stumbling upon before Soren was even born. A lot of parents that seem to follow the attached parenting methods (nursing, baby led weaning, co-sleeping, yadda yadda) have a tendency to lean more on the Montessori method for education - at least it seems that way.
Every time we think we know the method, or have it completely figured out - we get slammed with even more material about the pedagogy that makes us even more grateful that we went for it. We have two stellar sitters for Soren - one is a fun, energetic electronic media major and the other is her dedicated Montessori education major roommate. Thank you SitterCity for helping me find these gems!
Just a few days ago, our Montessori major sat for Soren and ended up staying and chatting with us about the program. She is SO dedicated to it - and I can understand why! She told us how the classrooms are arranged how they are willing to borrow supplies from other classrooms to help cater to each individuals rate of progress.
That Soren will be taught to spell phonically. How he will group objects together to count - that if he throws one of his legendary tantrums 'which he will - they all do' he will be talked to about his energy and taught how to bring it down. That he will learn respect of not just his teacher (who will be called by her first name - emphasizing they are ALL people - ALL human beings! Love it!) but of his fellow students. Because together, they will complete projects in 'interdisciplinary' play.
She brought up more concepts about energy (of which I am extremely intrigued) but also language - both verbal and physical. She recommended a few books and I can't wait to dive in. Even more than that - I can't wait to see how Soren does in school.
Montessori also relies heavily on parent participation to work - so Rick and I are both studying up. We've already used a couple of Sarah's suggestions. My favorite of recent is calming Soren's temper.
The other day during a blow up, as he swung his arm at me (normal 3 year old behavior) - I told him the 'energy in here is too high. We need to give our bodies a rest.' He looked at me calmly as I repeated myself in a slow quiet voice. He went to the table, sat in the chair - and we took a deep breath. Talked - and expressed our feelings. He told me 'momma, you hurt my feelings. You took my legos away'. I responded 'I am so sorry I hurt your feelings Soren. But I told you it was time for lunch and we needed to eat. To give your body good energy. I am sorry I hurt your feelings, but when you hit me - it hurts my feelings and my body, I love you bubs'. His brow furrowed as he processed the information, keeping eye contact. While taking a bite of his sandwich, he replied 'sorry momma. Hitting is not nice. I wov you too'.
And with that, we ate lunch. That is why we choose Montessori.
I LOVE any activity that makes a mess. As fastidious as I am about our place being organized and clean, I adore any craft, game or project that gets messy. I revel in the paint stains on Soren's pants and shirts, the mud all over our shoes and am grateful for the memories (achem - pictures) these messes have created.
Most of this is from Sensory Play. A term I have blogged about so many times in the past. What is Sensory Play? Here is a quick definition from this site, housing TONS of sensory play activities:
“As humans, we have five senses through which we experience and explore our world. They are hearing, smell, touch, sight, and taste. As a parent, allowing your child to engage in play activities that appeal to their senses is important. Through sensory play, children can experience stimulation of their senses. Simply said, we engage in and understand life though the sensory information our senses pick up.”
Yesterdays sensory play-ish activity and one we do quite a bit around here - was watercolor painting the tub. This is a great one - it gives us the opportunity to talk about a lot of different things.
1. All the different types of colors
2. How we can mix them in the tub - in the water and on the brushes.
3. What we are drawing - why we are drawing it (faces and emotions are great for this - yesterday we talked about the Seasons, Momma is SO SO ready for Spring!)
4. Use our fingers to spread the colors around
5. Use suds to change the texture and look of the colors (adds some sparkle)
6. The best part - how to clean it up.
Clean up:
The watercolors are SO easy to clean up. We use Honest Co. products so they are super friendly for kiddos. With their all natural ingredients I don't worry too much about Soren helping and he is encouraged to do so. Make a mess? Gotta clean it up!
He grabs the brush and starts scrubbing. It seriously takes less than 5 minutes to clean up and he gets a bubble bath out of it. Everybody wins!
A portrait a week of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014'
This week's pic was a really difficult choice! We have been up to all sorts of shenanigans and I've been able to snag snapshots of a good portion of it that I just couldn't pick. So I left it up to Soren. He wanted the bike picture - because 'I 'wov my bicycle. I go reeeeeal fast but wear my helmut. It protects my brain! Protect all that energy in my brain!'