Laundry

Elena is learning to do her own laundry today. She has had her own laundry basket for a while now, but today after she said, "Mama needs to wash my laundry," my mother suggested she learn to wash it herself. She took to this with enthusiasm and managed to get her load washing in the machine very minimally assisted by me. The reason I was motivated to write a not about this wasn't so much that her accomplishment was so amazing; it's what I noticed in myself. Walking her through how to do laundry without jumping in to help requires more patience than I often have. It's painfully slow. It was very tempting to jump in and do some of it for her (though she wasn't asking me to help). I did better, though, when I thought of it as a school activity. And, of course, reminding myself that even though it takes more of my time now to help her learn this task, it will mean less time for me in the future when she masters it.

And being able to put it into her school log really helps my mind, which tends to like to check things off of lists (I can write it under the "developmental activities" section of her Sonlight book).

They're growing up so fast!

Cosleeping:

I knew that this day would happen, but I thought it was several years in the future: Elena now requests to sleep in her own bed. I know that different kids reach this point at different times, but I really didn't expect that Elena would get to this point for a good while. We haven't encouraged this at all because Erich actually prefers to sleep in the bunk beds when she's not there. I wonder whether part of it is getting disturbed by Dmitri in the middle of the night. Last night, for example, she chose to sleep in the big bed, but moved out to the couch in the middle of the night.

Bathing:

Elena washed (and conditioned!) her hair herself today. She said Papa taught her how. I observed just to make sure and found that her technique was effective. But I didn't really expect her to start being independent in this realm so soon. Especially not with long hair.

Solid food:

Dmitri is now taking in some solid foods. Little bits of bread, banana, and nectarine so far. He enjoys it. I'm reminded that the major downside to solids is the drastic change in poop smell. Sigh. At least much of his poop just goes straight in the toilet.

Toileting/EC:

Dmitri now often makes it through the night without wetting his diaper. He wakes to pee two or three times a night, but since I have a chamber pot next to the bed and spare diapers (the kind I can literally do with my eyes closed), I don't have to get out of bed or turn on a light to help him out. If he wakes because he needs to pee, he refuses to nurse, so I can't mollify him into peeing in his diaper (though he will eventually if I just ignore his fusses).

Swim Lessons:

Elena is now in her fourth month of the most basic swim lessons. In her third month, she got a new teacher who was significantly less nurturing. During that month, she actually regressed as far as her fear of water was concerned. She became VERY resistant to participating in lessons at all and screamed and cried in fear through them. She's now back with her old teacher and is doing much better. She tells me that she's no longer scared and she enjoys swimming again. Phew. Can't wait until she builds enough skill to actually SWIM.

That's all for now! Maybe later I'll make a note about Elena's progress in reading.

Go Club

Erich has been frustrated at the lack of a Go Club here in the Inland Empire, so he decided to start his own. For a while, he was the only person in attendance. More recently, Elena has been going with him. She begged him to let her go. He explained the required standards of behaviour, and from his report, she has been able to comply. Her first time at the club, she spent over two hours doing nothing but Go problems. Her skills are improving, but she has some difficulty with not always being the winner. I sometimes overhear her say, "I want to play you again, but this time you need to not go in the places that *I* want to go." This is actually a good sign--it shows that she recognizes moves that her opponent makes that are detrimental to her position. I think it's also useful for her to learn how to lose. Her games here at home are played with her gang of imaginary friends (the same ones that attend her "classes" with her). No huge surprise, somehow she manages to win all the games. So it takes some adjustment when she interacts with real children who can beat her at footraces or other games. She sometimes comes to us crying and says, "But at home, I am the fastest kid!" I can't really argue with her logic there.

I would be interested to hear a description of Erich's experiences with her at Go Club; I only over hear her playing Go at home. She seems to enjoy it, though as I think I've mentioned before, she'll happily do just about anything if it means she'll get direct interaction with an adult. Still, I think it's probably good for the development of her analytical, spatial, and sportsmanship skills.