Rough Road to Reading

Rowan and I did an online reading assessment.  He flew through the easy words, but stumbled on 'here' and 'you'.  He scored at a pre-K reading level.  He showed no interest in that fact either. He should be in Grade 2.

Eliana has spent the past hour working in her Explode the Code 1 phonics book.  She loves it.  We initially bought it for Rowan, when he was in JK/SK. We even have the 2nd and 3rd books in the series.  He did about 1/3rd of the book.  She has flown through the rest of the book, and knows the next two books are waiting for her.  She is excited to read, can't wait to read with us and loves doing her schoolwork.  When she starts book 2 tomorrow, it's rated at a Grade 1 reading level.


I love reading. I have always loved reading.  It makes me sad when I think that Rowan isn't enjoying reading as much as he should be.  He loves being read to.  He even enjoys copying books passages at times.  But to actually read something?   I hope that this will soon be behind us.

Rowan and Opa

Rowan and Opa sat outside waiting for Gord last Friday evening.  When asked later what they did, I prompted with watching the trains and cars, Rowan adds "and all the pretty girls" with a grin.

Busy times

Sometimes my blog needs a life update:

Mom spent Wednesday night in the ER.  She has 2 small blood clots on her left lung.  Hopefully with the blood-thinners, the problems will resolve.  She was feeling much better by Saturday morning.  Unfortunately, on Thurs night she fell, breaking her glasses and getting a black eye.

Dad is his usual self.  No point arguing with him, he gets angry if anyone even looks at him with anything less than agreement.  He doesn't detect sarcasm anymore, so sarcastic-positive responses are just fine.  His odd antics include holding traffic up to cross the road VERY VERY slowly, stopping cars to let Amy and I turn left onto PE street from his driveway (ack!!) Mowing the lawn daily as the dandelions are bothering him.  No point telling him that the dandelions are too short for the mower.  He also refuses to cut the back yard grass, 'what's the point, no one sees it.'

Calla spent last night at the OSC on a sleepover with Brownies.  She had a wonderful time. They saw Hubble at the IMAX.  We renewed our OSC membership for another year. She loves Brownies and will miss it over the summer. 

Rowan has his first 6 year molar growing in, and just maybe a loose tooth.  It's not too wiggly yet, but he's hoping it is.  He is doing very well at swimming lessons this session.  Like a fish in water according to his instructor.  A nice change!!

Eliana is being defiant.  She argues everything and sulks when it's just not going her way.  Usually when she's tired.  She had a rough time last week at swimming lessons and has declared that she is not going this week.  We shall see.

Gord and I will be celebrating our 10th anniversary this year.  We are planning a trip to Los Vegas,  a week without the kids.  My sister has offered to take the kids for the week.  We had planned to have my sister drop the kids with my parents half way through, but with my Mom's health, we may have to change it.  It's still weeks away, so she may be fine by then.

More later.

Rowan and Reading

Rowan has started reading.  He's slowing progressing through the first set of phonics readers. Slowly. Many times he doesn't remember a word that was just read in the previous sentence.  He still needs to sound out 'it' 'is' 'in' 'on' but finally knows 'the' and 'and'  His motivation to continue is building a LEGO kit.  For every 2 readers he gets to put another 8-10 pieces on his LEGO RV kit that he really really wants.  Unfortunately for me, I have endured 6 or 8 phonics readers today alone, with words like Pat and Pam being repeatedly sounded out, even though they are the main characters in every book.  Even tougher for me to take is how sounding out S-A-W gets pronounced 'was'  'no' and 'on' are regularly interchanged.

Soon this will be a slight bump on our path to fluent reading, but right now it's a hill.

The benefit to homeschooling is that we don't have anyone to impress, no one to say 'Mrs. Wilson, he's not reading at level blahblah yet'   He will read. Fluently. When he is ready.  The LEGO goal seems to be a good reward for him and best of all, a motivator to continue trying. 

I'm being called to read another book...

The things boys do...

...that girls wouldn't consider even thinking about.

Boy wonder (aka Rowan) decided to handcuff his hands behind his back yesterday. Ok, fine, they're kids cuffs, quick release. Didn't think anything of it. Then he decided to climb the rope ladder to the play fort. (I didn't realise he was doing this until after) Next thing I see is him lying on the ground rolling around, either laughing or crying. I can't tell the difference from the kitchen. He takes his cuffs off, whips them across the yard. Starts taking other toys, whipping them across the yard in extreme anger. Worried for the girls safety (a friend and her 2yo were visiting) I rushed to see what was wrong. He fell off the rope ladder and his head hit the wood surrounding the sandbox. His ear and cheek are bruised. There is a dark mark inside his upper ear. He says it hurts when he chews, as he probably bruised the muscles of his jaw too.

Boys.

Rowan

My sweet 5yo boy had a migraine today. A headache so bad it sent him back to bed every time the Advil wore off. He's finally in bed now, after nearly throwing up around 9pm. This is the worst headache/migraine any of my kids have had. He complained about the pain throbbing in his forehead, increasing when he lays down, moves suddenly or walks about. The Advil helped, but the pain returned after 6hrs. Gord tells me that he was awake last night around 11:30 with a nightmare or crying out. Apparently I slept through it. If he awakes in the morning with a headache, we'll be off to the clinic at 9am. This is the 3rd headache he's had in 2 or so weeks, (prob.3 since time flies!) and the worst.

I'd take him climbing the fridge over this lethargy any day.

Meltdowns

Rowan has a meltdown this morning because Calla wanted to play Lego Star Wars on Wii, and had controller 1. His problem: she has controller 1. His solution: throwing anything he could get his hands on while crying uncontrollably. I finally picked him up, rocked him back and forth, while playing LSW with controller 2 until he realised I wasn't very good at it (haha). I realised as his tantrum started that a timeout would only prolong the event (more than the 10 mins it DID take), causing him to hurt himself or break something (like the door to his room, his mirror, his bed...)

Is this the behaviour of a typical 5 year old boy? Is this something I should be concerned about? He gets so frustrated at times that he hits and pushes his sisters. He gets hyper, jumping off the furniture, climbing the door frames. When we settle down to do our daily lessons, he's inattentive, can't sit for 2 mins, and touches everything around him, quite often causing me to let him leave the lesson so that Calla can get some value out of it.
He cannot go into his gym program without a major meltdown and me having to hand him over kicking and screaming to the instructor, who he calms down for shortly after I leave. He's been going to the same gym class since Sept 07 with Calla. We tried soccer w/o Calla this summer. When I took him, it was a disaster. When Gord took him, he was a little better, not quite so stubborn. When I take him anywhere with the girls, he runs off, climbs something or touches everything. When we're one on one, he's awesome, a sweet child that you'd never believe could do the above stuff. He's also good going to Sunday School, though he clings to Calla side and goes to her class instead of his K class. I could go on. Is this typical middle child behaviour? 5yo boy behaviour? Close sibling rivalry?

Right now they are trying on every pair of shoes I own and parading around to show me. It's quite cute, Rowan in high heels is quite the sight.

Shopping with Amy

I had a wonderful afternoon shopping with my sister. We do this every year, near Christmas, to get our shopping done. The event always includes an overpriced coffee, and lunch.

My dear son is throwing a fit right now. He raced his sister to the bathtub, then, after she declared she was showering alone, in the morning, he started crying about wanting his bath tomorrow, too. Now, at this point he is IN the bathtub. Wet. He doesn't want his hair washed, he just wants out. No amount of reasoning ('you're already in the tub','I'll be done in 2 mins and you're done for the weekend') will change his mind. Knowing my son will throw this fit again in the morning, I proceed to wash his hair, while he screams "I don't want my hair washed" Thankfully his hair is very short. Now Gord is reasoning with him to get his jammies on and calmed down. Sounds like the crisis has passed. I hope this will not start again in the morning when Calla has her shower. I think I'm going to take a bath now, with smelly candles and the door SECURELY locked.

My Star Wars Junkies

Somehow my kids have become Star Wars junkies. They love Star Wars. They have light sabers, lots of Lego Storm Troupers, and the root of their addiction, LEGO Star Wars Saga for the Wii.
While camping, we made a short stop motion video:



A quote from Rowan as we were leaving Canadian Tire (through the automatic doors):Look! I used the Force to open the doors!