Through ups and downs of craziness in this household a few things have started to change. Whether it is the diet changes that we have made or just growing up there are some really cool things happening with Xavier.
In the last few weeks he has started being able to play with play-dough for longer than a few minutes, he has started to sing and not only sing but sing songs in their entirety, knowing every word and he sings so well. There are times when the boys are playing alone in the playroom and they are not fighting but singing together… Maybe it is hearing his brother sing, maybe he is just gaining more confidence but whatever it is, it makes our hearts flutter.
Today, I sat down at the kitchen table with both boys and we did a few pages in some workbooks that I picked out at the dollar store a few years ago… Xavier picked out animals that didn’t belong, coloured and did a number activity in which he names the numbers and then coloured as many objects next to that number (like if the number was 7 and there where 10 objects he coloured 7 of them)… he got up to the number 8 and then his attention went else where… but the fact that he did it was completely out of the ordinary for him… and the fact that he sat so long was a great deal also… No forcing, no “teaching”… just learning and having fun…
(Colin loved the pages that he did too.. )
Of course there are still things that we would like to see evolve, whether it is age stuff or personality it is hard to deal with him lashing out at times. But we are working on it, showing him alternative ways of dealing with his emotions, teaching him and showing him.
Sometimes we doubt that we are getting somewhere with him,
Sometimes we feel that everything is working out perfectly.
Sometimes we have the feelings within a few minutes of each other.
Though a day like today was rough in some aspects, in others we saw change.
Tonight, before bed he was excited. He said to us that tomorrow is Music day. He got out an old cassette radio that we have and a few old cassettes (Star Wars and Close encounters of the third kind) and he wants to listen to them…
I also made a calendar for the month of March a few days ago, highlighting a few special days (Simon’s birthday, first day of Spring, Earth Day etc) and few weird days (Pig day, Toast Day) , so tomorrow is also Pig day and he looks forward to celebrating that also…
I think I now need to find a song about a pig 😉
“It is sooo good to hear that even you have rough times with your kids! Somedays I feel like I’ve/we’ve done a great job with Kaia (who is 5 now) but others, like yesterday, I just want to run away. She can be such a joy to be around one second and the next she is stomping, yelling and pretending to hit her sister (Kali, my Sept 04 “baby”). Ugh. I am afraid to think about what the teen years are going to be like with 2 hormonal girls if it’s this bad now!
Anyways, I don’t know what my point was now, LOL, so I’m going to leave it at that and hope today is better than yesterday!”
melissainbc (sent by e-mail)
You can search for the lyrics to kids’ songs by category or otherwise at http://www.kididdles.com/lyrics/index.html