Today has been a pretty good, but busy day. Jared woke up at 5 a.m. this morning to eat. I only know this because I asked Lance when I called him at work this morning. I didn't hear him on the monitor or hear Lance get up for work. I got great sleep last night, and when I woke up at 7:15 both girls were still in bed and Jared was starting to wake up, talking through the monitor. Perfect time to get in a shower. I got myself together, Jenna was out on the computer and the babies weren't complaining yet. By the time I got Ava and Jared up and changed it was 8 o'clock. Some other things to kick off the good day: 1) payday; 2) Lance coming home at 12:30; and 3) fresh coffee. I also got a text this morning that one of my closest friends had her baby in the middle of the night! Welcome Isaiah :) We were also looking forward to kids movie night at church with "Finding Nemo."
At 8:30 I gave Jared a bottle, put some cartoons on for the girls, and got some coffee and breakfast going. It was a really quick morning. 11 o'clock rolled around, gave the girls snacks and Ava went down for a nap around 11:45. Lance came home with a pizza for lunch before Jenna and I went to her preschool to do a Dial 3 Screening for 3-5 year olds. With the late breakfast and snacks, plus recovering from a cold, Jenna wasn't hungry at all for lunch, so she got a string cheese before we left.
I had never heard of this program until moving to St. Louis, but it's called Parents as Teachers. It's a free service through our district where parent educators can come to your home and evaluate your kids milestones and development but also give you tips on helping your kids meet goals. Basically, as a parent, "you are your child's first and most important teacher." The screening is made to determine if your child is on track with their development based on averages for their age. They look at gross and fine motor skills, concepts, speech and language and social development, and also check their vision and hearing. It couldn't hurt, and it might actually boost my own self-esteem that I'm doing something right in the midst of beating myself up for yelling or snapping at Jenna. I really think children's behavior outside the home is partly their own personality but also very much the influences on them IN the home. I think I really underestimate Jenna sometimes. She gets so whiny and difficult a lot at home, but I know she is a big social butterfly, loves interacting with other people, and is improving so much on listening (to other adults, not me). She can't really express herself at home when I'm constantly shifting my attention off of whatever I'm doing with her to tend to Ava or Jared. I try to take advantage of any opportunity to get her out and about, especially school. She loves it, and I love that. So onto the screening.
I wasn't really sure what to expect, so I was prepping Jenna by telling her that a teacher was going to ask her about the things she's learning in preschool, her numbers, etc. We signed in and went to the waiting area of the school lobby that has toys and books. It didn't take long for one of the "parent educators", who is also a sub for Jenna's teacher, to come out and get Jenna. She asked, "Jenna, do you want to go play some games?" To which Jenna replied, "Sure. Mommy, can I go play some games?" It was adorable. Then she rushed off as excited as can be, chatting down the hallway. I delighted in the other parent's amusement of her. She is something else. I knew that I wouldn't be in there with her, but I didn't like just sitting and waiting with nothing to do for an hour. I did some texting for a couple minutes, and another mom had come back to the waiting area after peeking into the gym where the kids were. Without being too obvious that I was going to do exactly what she did, I gave it a few minutes, then made my way around to the gym. Jenna's teacher was walking out of her room at the same time, and she was just as anxious to peek in at Jenna with me and adding that she expects Jenna will have no problem with kindergarten. We were chatting trying to steer clear of the windows. After a few minutes, her teacher left and I stayed to spy. I watched Jenna sitting at a table by herself with the educator, listening intently, and then sorting shapes into piles. I also saw her stacking blocks at one point. They changed stations to do motor skills: throwing and catching, hopping, jumping, skipping. When they left that station she spotted me through the window, AH. I didn't want to throw her off and make her non-compliant by the mere sight of me. The educator said something to the effect of "it's someone's mommy," to which Jenna quickly replied, "It's mine!" I quickly moved out of the sight and then felt totally stupid. I heard her talking, but I decided to just go back to the waiting area. I had been gone too long. My sister called after a few minutes, so I went out the first set of front doors. It was nice and heated between those doors and the outer set of doors. I saw two of the educators come to the waiting area and then another mom direct them toward the front door, so I rushed off the phone and went back inside. I followed them to the gym where Jenna was playing with (what else) animals with a little boy. She looked so cute and grown up all on her own in that room. I sat at a little table to discuss the results of Jenna's evaluations.
I wish I could've had the copy of the results that they keep because they showed the specific tasks that they did, so I'll try to jog my memory. She mentioned the block stacking activity for motor skills, which was also copying. She stacked a single tower but had a little difficulty building a pyramid style with the long level on the bottom, smaller level stacked above that in a row, etc. She did great with the physical things, jumping on one foot, skipping, etc. Some fine motors skills need work. She is on track with cutting for her age level (3-4yrs), though we need to practice some more. She isn't as coordinated with twiddling her thumbs and touching each finger to her thumbs. I never would've even though to practice something like that. But she did great with "concepts" such as, naming colors while being timed (15 in 30 seconds...or something like that), identifying body parts (except wrist), positions (between, above, below), sorting and identifying shapes and identifying concepts. One in particular was looking at a picture and telling what it's used for. One picture showed a thermometer, but Jenna said it was a ruler (I guess it looked similar with the little lines, and we use the forehead scanner at home. I don't think she's seen those old-school thermometers LOL). The educator asked what a ruler is used for, and Jenna said, "to see how long you are." :) The educator was really impressed with Jenna's rhyming ability and identifying upper and lower case letters. She also had to copy some letters and symbols. The triangle and diamond were tricky. She was trying to do the diamond, stopped and said, "That's not right," and quickly moved on to the next one. She did an eye spy picture game to identify the objects that start with a certain sound, like find the things that start with the "t" sound. As far as behavior, on one hand I was surprised that there were NO concerns, but then again it's always different when mommy isn't hovering to correct her every mis-step. That automatically turns into selective hearing and straight-up ignoring! She listened, stayed on task, and understood directions.
At one point when we were discussing the behavior, and the woman said they call Jenna the cheerleader because she's so enthusiastic about everything, I just had to laugh and tell the woman that it must be that she got out of the house because we've been cooped up inside, and I've been seeing a different little girl. Of course I know how well Jenna separates from me and does in school, but I realized the woman could take that as me being out of touch with Jenna or that I don't appreciate that about her or something. It's weird how I feel like I have to defend my parenting. Also, when she was talking about working on cutting with scissors, I told her that I have two other little ones that I'm going back and forth with, so I'm not really leaving Jenna with scissors to practice. I laughed about it, but hopefully she didn't take offense to that :-\ Either way, I sat at that table doing everything I could to not 1) cry and 2) laugh hysterically in sheer pride and joy. It's just a preK screening, but in those 15 minutes of going over Jenna's skills assessment I felt such satisfaction and accomplishment in myself. She didn't have to straight out say, you've done a great job, and she didn't. But sitting there seeing her reaction to all that Jenna was able to do and the individual that she is, was validation enough for me.
I feel like since having the babies, I miss developments and things with Jenna that she gets in school, but I am really glad that she has her outlet in school and can come home, we can be excited together on her counting or drawing something new or some different craft, things that I don't really have the time and energy to do at home...I guess except on snow days. It was really perfect, God-ordained timing with Jenna's age and having Ava. On one hand I'm going to always be a teacher for Jenna, but on the other, as Ava is getting bigger I feel like I've taught Jenna all I can in the "getting ready for school" capacity, atleast at this time in my life with the demands of Ava and Jared. I am so grateful that I was able to spend her first three years so focused on her, reading to her, taking her out, teaching, practicing, playing. Thankfully Ava takes a big nap during the day where Jenna and I can do projects or do a learning workbook. But at times I'll start something with Jenna, and have to say, "Oh wait, Ava's awake, I'll be back," or "Hold on, I need to get Jared's bottle ready." Today she did get whiny when I had to feed Jared. She just wanted me to put him in his rocking chair :) But while we don't have many routines left besides baby napping schedules, she has adapted really well. It was no surprise, though, that when Lance asked who she wanted to take her to movie night she said, "Mommy. I love mommy."
But before we headed out for that, I took Ava with me to go visit my friend and her baby. We stopped to get some flowers and then made it through the 17 degree (lower with wind chill) walk inside the hospital. One thing I thought about was that, although Jared is really little for his age, he has grown so much! Thankfully I had no yearning for another child or anything when I held the baby :) I kept Ava in the stroller, so we didn't stay too long as she was getting whiny, but it was a nice outing with just me and her. We got home, I cooked up some meat for Lance to make tacos, and Jenna and I were off to church. We did stop at the bakery for a big Valentine's day cookie (that Jenna picked out), and I had a miniature piece of white cake with a strawberry sauce, white chocolate mousse and strawberry on top. We were going to be a few minutes late for the movie, but it was nice to not make her rush to get somewhere. It's also good that she missed the baracuda in the beginning, it's scares her. Although she did surprisingly well during the scary angler fish part I'm trying to prep her for scary, loud things like that by telling her to plug her ears and close her eyes. Before she would run out of the room altogether, but I think I've convinced her that she doesn't have to miss more of the movie than necessary by leaving the room. Just close your ears and eyes, and I'll tell you when it's done. She must have asked me 10 times to sit right by her so I can hold her during the scary parts. She also knows how to control the remote to fast-foward the DVR for recorded movies, so she can get past the scary parts herself. Overall, the time out for us today was great. She had great manners, telling me thank you every time I brought a drink or food to our table for us, she would climb on my lap during the movie, we played a little Wii. There was also a little devotional for the kids mid-movie to think about why Nemo got in trouble and lost (he didn't listen to his dad), and that even though Nemo didn't listen, his dad still loved him and wasn't going to stop until he found him. She was exhausted by the time we got home, and so was I. I'm not used to being out that late. I think we left around 8:30. It's 11:30 right now, and I'm delusional.
In closing, no matter how much I have to tell Jenna to wait, stop what she's doing to Ava, don't do this or that...I love that girl, and she loves me, and now she has shown the world, well her preschool, how much I've invested in her. I guess I should technically say that I don't need recognition, it's my job as a mother to also be a teacher and guide her, and I do it out of my love for her. That's all fine and dandy, but it's also nice to know that someone notices!!!
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