I blog more frequently on my kids private blogging area. But maybe it’s time to add a few comments here to bring people up to speed.
The year was a healthy one for the kids. No broken appendages! Christien finally decided to grow a bit faster. He’s not the smallest kid in the school! This fall, he has made leaps and bounds on his reading ability. And his conversation skills are advanced for his age. To be honest, this is the year he went from preschooler to a kid right before my eyes. A little sad since this is the last time I’ll go through that experience with my kids. Academically he is making leaps and bounds. We were a bit concerned early in the year because we were getting feedback from the teacher that he was struggling. But we put our heads together and came up with a plan to figure out why. It turns out he was a bit introverted resulting in anxiety at school. Leading to attention problems. Working with the teacher we figured out that Christien learnt best by rephrasing the scenario and enabling him to figure out how he can solve problems instead of forcing him to do things. For example, he had problems getting to the carpet on time. Instead of pushing him and ‘staying on him’, it was a matter of practicing at home and having him contribute to how he was going to solve the problem of getting to the carpet on time.
This opened the floodgates and he hasn’t looked back since. He is a smart kid and that is fortunate for him or else he would be in trouble living with his sister.
Sports/activities-wise, Christien has been playing soccer, doing some pre-Can skate, and lots and lots of swimming (as you’ll find out in my next post). We are hoping to get him into some hockey and skiing over the winter. Looks like a snowy winter so this will be nice.
Olivia is growing way too fast. It is getting close to the time when Dad is no longer the coolest person in the world. We are battling over what is good music. She still likes most of my stuff but the ratio is swinging to the other side. We bought her an iPod this year and initially I stuffed it full of songs that I like and that we used to listen to since she was a kid. Daddy songs. But recently I’ve been co-erced into adding more songs to her device such as Katy Perry, Karlie Ray Jepsen, New Direction, etc. And sadly, this musical taste bleeds into the everyday listening in the car for all of us….well…in the truck that is. My car is off-limits to all except the music I want to listen to. No exceptions.
Olivia has continued in gymnastics and swimming. She’s a very good swimmer and is in one class ahead of what her age should be in. She has dropped soccer as a sport, skating is on hiatus, and baseball was an indifferent attempt that maybe will get revisited. But she is still busy. She’s focused on piano and is making strides there. And that is fortunate….since we now have 2 pianos in our front room. We are babysitting a antique Mathushek baby grand piano in addition to the upright we already had.
Just a brief timeline of summer events….we didn’t do too much in the way of travel since we had to be near home for the various projects around the house. But we did go to some traditional destinations: Port Elgin, JellyStone Park, MacGregor Point with the Millers. We also spent some time reconnecting with some old friends at Point Clark a couple of times.
We’ll be making things up in the travel department over the winter as we are planning for a trip to Disney. That’ll put us back in the A+ category.
Christmas is just around the corner. This is probably the last one where Olivia still has some belief in Santa….she has already asked a few times if he is real. I can see the doubt in her eyes….but not completely. Christien is still 100% all-in on Santa. I’m going to be very very sad when this stage in life passes by.
Anyway, life is great with the kids. Mornings are brutally loud. I can’t remember the last time I slept in.