Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Conferences... for a 2 yr old??




The other day I had Anna's conference at Montessori. Personally, it seems so silly to me to have a conference for a 2 yr old. But we'll go with the flow! The people are very nice and we do like it there, we have no complaints. I just personally have inner turmoil regarding sending her to Montessori vs staying at home with Mom. You see part of me wants her with me during the day and the other part needs a little down time to get things done and refuel.  So this battle continues to go on inside of me. Sometimes I think God is giving me this little extra time- kind of easing me into re-expanding our family. When we have more children and I homeschool this down time will probably not be happening. Even when Sarah is here I won't really have time to myself. Jim and I have talked about me taking some time on Saturdays and then he can spend time with the girls. Anna is at Montessori 2 days a week. We are planning to continue with that schedule so Sarah and I will have 2 days- just the 2 of us!

We enough of my inner turmoil and back to the conferences! Sweet Anna is our baby. We love to baby her- she gets carried, she sleeps in a crib, still uses a high chair and sippy cup and we do not have big plans to potty train in the imminent future. I guess in her Montessori class she is one of the older girls and within 2-4 months she will move on to the preschool room. (My baby in the preschool room- oh please.) I encouraged them to keep her in the toddler room for as long as possible. After all, she has only been home 15 months and we want to give her plenty of time to learn, to experience and grow at her own pace. All in all our conference went just fine but I guess she needs to work on her independence with daily skills- washing hands, putting on her coat and hat, putting on her shoes, etc. She also needs to talk more in class. Work on her manners- please , thank you, etc. Then there are a few academic skills to work on- colors, numbers, alphabet, etc again. So Katie went to get Anna and I went to the conference. The minute Katie steps in the door Anna starts talking away, their conversation goes from colors to what they did during the day. Next thing she does is put her jacket and hat on... all by herself! The teacher with Anna was stunned, the teacher telling me she needed to work on these skils doesn't even know she can do them... IF she wants to! I guess our daughter is choosing not to talk in class- that is okay - she gets in the car and counts to 10 and sings songs! She is taking it all in but for now she is watching some things and not participating in them. At ECFE- they joke that she will be taking the teachers job soon because she knows all the finger plays! By the way she does say please, thank you and sorry BUT she needs an occasional prompt!  Way to go Anna- you go girl!! 

One more thing- Anna tends to play with the younger kids in the class- I guess she mothers them. She has never really enjoyed kids her own age. She seems to like them older or younger- no artificial twinning for her!

These pictures are of her putting on her jacket- flipping it over her head! 


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