An Overdue Update

Now with two kids it is becoming more interesting. With the first it was all about ‘what can we do?’ and ‘what do we do?’. Thankfully my wife is great at this stuff and she has done some terrific work with our two daughters.  So where are we at?

A) Sophia. She is now almost 2 ½ years old. She is reading sentences when she concentrates on reading one word at a time. We achieved this by starting with the YBCR program and reading books to her. We have always made sure that we underline the words are we read them with our finger so she understands that we read left to right, top to bottom.  At this stage it is about encouraging her to read. We now give her 30 minutes after she has gone to bed where she can have the light on and read books to herself with the door shut. To be honest I am not sure if this is working, but it has made bed time a far more peace proposition and you can hear her talking (reading?) to her teddy bears. And her reading has improved in teh last week or so. She is also expressing a strong interesting in writing. From time to time she can draw an ‘O’ or a ‘D’. My wife bought some writing training books which are great. They show Sophia how to form letters and loves to trace them, although her fine motor skills are not quite up to the job just yet.

B) I have also been focusing on physical balance with Sophia. When we are the playground I am encouraging her to climb over things. Climbing up and down is easy, but over is a lot more challenging. I have been showing her how to place her feet and hands to achieve what she wants to do. Sometimes it works, and sometimes not – there have been a few falls!

C) Oh and we just started toilet training with her too. That is another blog entry altogether!!

D)Anneliese. She is now 2 months old. She is very alert and is tracking visually and aurally. She can distinguish important voices (mummy, daddy and Sophia) and this week has starting batting some of the hanging items over her bassinet. My wife (and therefore myself) has been making a concerted effort to make sure she spends a lot of time on her tummy. This is paying dividends as Anneliese has very strong neck muscles. I have also been encouraging her to stand up on my lap to help build her leg muscles. She is doing very well – she can stand for 2-3 minutes at a time while I hold her hands/arms. And she loves it! She is also smiling a lot, cooing and has a rudimentary laugh which we are hearing more frequently.

So with Sophia it is about reinforcing the reading – encouraging her, guiding her and helping her. That, and making the dunny water green/orange. As I said earlier, that’s another post…