*****This post was written about two weeks ago, but I was having camera trouble, so I didn't post it until I was able to get the pictures uploaded****
Well, we finally decided to buckle down and do it...we are intensivly potty training Cadence (she will be 2 in April). We are two days in and it is going better than I expected so far. However, potty training requires mother and child to remain in close proximity to a potty at all times, which means I am going stir crazy! We put some underwear on her (she is particularly fond of Spiderman) and set the timer - right now we are going about 45 min. between trips to the potty. I miss the YMCA! I think I will go for a jog around the ghetto when Todd gets home tonight.
You may be thinking "Solvay isn't ghetto", but your wrong! Last weekend, a guy a few blocks from here shot his wife and baracaded himself in the house. Our phone rang at 6:00 am Sunday (we were getting up to get ready for church anyways) and it was a reverse 911 recording telling us "Please do not go in or out of your house and stay away from the windows". So what did we do? We ran the kids out to the van and left for church hoping to stay away until the issue was resolved. They ended up having to shoot the guy, and we could hear the gunfire from our house. Then on Thursday we tried to go to the ATM down the street, but couldn't, because the credit union was all blocked off and surrounded by cops. I'm guessing that it had been robbed. So, yes, Solvay is really kind of ghetto.
In other news, Gabriel (just turned 3) is reading. He is catching on so fast it scares me! The story in today's lesson was "Sam is mad at me", and he read it without trouble. I didn't want to teach him to read until Cadence was old enough to learn too, but I just couldn't hold him back any longer. He learned to count and recognize numbers without any help from us, and he was beginning to pick up letter names. Knowing that letter sounds are more important than letter names to a young reader, I set about to teach him correctly...and he just kept wanting more. I didn't really expect him to be able to do it when I pulled out the reading book ("Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons), but he almost seems bored by it sometimes.
Right now I'm reading "Living your Strengths". I'm almost done with it actually. I was interested in taking the Strengths Finder test, hoping that it would help me in my quest for "purpose". My top 5 strengths (according to this test) are: Learner, Responsibility, Context, Restorative, and Competition. So far, I have been able to see the value in recognizing what my strengths are - understanding the positives and negatives of those strenghts - and utilizing my strengths in various aspects of my life while working around my weaknesses.
You may be thinking "Solvay isn't ghetto", but your wrong! Last weekend, a guy a few blocks from here shot his wife and baracaded himself in the house. Our phone rang at 6:00 am Sunday (we were getting up to get ready for church anyways) and it was a reverse 911 recording telling us "Please do not go in or out of your house and stay away from the windows". So what did we do? We ran the kids out to the van and left for church hoping to stay away until the issue was resolved. They ended up having to shoot the guy, and we could hear the gunfire from our house. Then on Thursday we tried to go to the ATM down the street, but couldn't, because the credit union was all blocked off and surrounded by cops. I'm guessing that it had been robbed. So, yes, Solvay is really kind of ghetto.
In other news, Gabriel (just turned 3) is reading. He is catching on so fast it scares me! The story in today's lesson was "Sam is mad at me", and he read it without trouble. I didn't want to teach him to read until Cadence was old enough to learn too, but I just couldn't hold him back any longer. He learned to count and recognize numbers without any help from us, and he was beginning to pick up letter names. Knowing that letter sounds are more important than letter names to a young reader, I set about to teach him correctly...and he just kept wanting more. I didn't really expect him to be able to do it when I pulled out the reading book ("Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons), but he almost seems bored by it sometimes.
Right now I'm reading "Living your Strengths". I'm almost done with it actually. I was interested in taking the Strengths Finder test, hoping that it would help me in my quest for "purpose". My top 5 strengths (according to this test) are: Learner, Responsibility, Context, Restorative, and Competition. So far, I have been able to see the value in recognizing what my strengths are - understanding the positives and negatives of those strenghts - and utilizing my strengths in various aspects of my life while working around my weaknesses.
