While Waiting

While I am waiting for the baby to make his grand entrance to the world, I am trying to force myself to go to the school room. Just my presence being there makes my kids eager to "study."

Koko is into the hundreds board. She likes to find all the ages of everyone close to her while filling the board. Today, she announced that grandpa is very old and asked if he was going to die soon. I think doing this activity helps her conceptualize time and age. But yes, death has been a major theme this summer. I never imagined she would be thinking about this at age four. Sigh.

Cheeky likes to talk about how she is making a cake(s) with the pink tower. She pretends to eat her cakes with great enthusiasm. Today, I pantomimed how to hold the blocks properly. I have been guilty of harping oral instructions such as "Hold with both hands" and "One at a time." But just pantomiming today helped center her and she started repeating my oral instructions to herself. And I'm so excited! I've been demonstrating how to put the insets on a tray for two weeks, but today, she finally did it herself! Usually, she just grabs an inset set without the tray. She also loves figuring out which geometric solids fit on the bases and...rolling the geometric solids to see which ones can roll.

Studying makes such a small portion of the day. Those two kids are never bored. Today, they cut up the plastic wrapping of several rolls of paper towels. They took out a bunch of clean towels to swaddle their stuffed animals. They used masking tape to fasten tissue and paper on their dolls, themselves, and me! And of course they swim and go fishing in the living room carpet--sometimes in their swimming suits, sometimes in their birthday suits. Every room in the house is wrecked except for their Montessori room. And they laugh like hyenas almost all day long. Except when they're fighting which happens, too. Sometimes I feel like an evil witch laying down the law about order and cleaning up. Still, I am trying to carve out joy out of this chaos, and hoping this baby boy will have as much fun with them, too. Though I am still hoping one of them might turn out to be a neat freak and help me clean because unfortunately, my husband and I seem to be terribly messy!