I’ve been putting off writing this post for a while, not because I am sad about my little girl growing up, but moreso because life has been a little hectic with a preschool graduate in the house. Holla!
I never realized how much I could get done in the 2 hour time frame I had while Braelyn was at preschool and Emry was snoozing.
Since summer has started, our days have been packed full of activities from playing at friends’ houses, to swimming, to baking with my best buddies in the kitchen. It’s hard to just take a moment away from the chaos of life and sit down to write something that is not “work related”.
However, I have to remind myself that this blog is not only dedicated to my food, but to my family as well. In fact, that should be the most important part of this blog; capturing the joy with my two girls and hubby.
First and foremost I have to give a well deserved shout out to my favorite little smarty pants. Miss Braelyn Boo took her kindergarten early entrance exam and passed with flying colors!
Braelyn doesn’t turn 5 until the end of December, but she was able to test early into kindergarten based on her social and academic skills. Now I am not typically the mom to boast about how “smart” my kid is. Yes, I know there are plenty of smart kids out there, and I am glad for that, but Braelyn sure takes the cake in the wits department. The kid has been speaking full sentences since about 18 months.
She has such an extensive vocabulary that I can hardly keep up with her. She told me the other day at the library that she was “totally engrossed” with reading. And yes, she is reading too! She has all of her sight words memorized and can sound out most 4 and some 5 letter words. I wish I could take credit for her extensive development, but truth of the matter is that she just came that way. I’m just your typical mom who tries to read to my kid, offer enlightening experiences and show her love and kindness (unless she is getting on my nerves; then that last one is hard!)
Ben and I went back and forth for months whether we should push starting her in school early. But by the time March rolled around and Braelyn was asking me every minute of every day what we had planned, where we were going, who we were playing with, what we were reading, what game she could play, etc. we decided that she was ready for a full day of school and social interaction.
So I signed her up for her evaluation and sent her off to be tested. They don’t allow parents in the room while they are testing the child. A teacher simply escorts your child to the classroom and you see them 20 minutes later with no feedback or the slightest idea of how well they performed. You just wait, and wait, and wait for that anticipating letter to come in the mail stating whether or not they passed.
I did try asking Braelyn what kinds of questions they asked her, and I got a pretty good idea of how well she did. She told me they asked her what her name was. She said, “I told them my name is Braelyn Gundersen. B-R-A-E-L-Y-N G-U-N-D-E-R-S-E-N. And I signed it too!” We have a little over achiever on our hands. Needless to say, when the letter arrived stating that she made it into kindergarten, I wasn’t the least bit surprised.
Because of her young age and her extremely creative and social personality, we did opt to put her in the more interactive/fun based learning class rather than the strict, desks forward, individual learning class. I think that was a good idea!
And for my other smarty pants? Well, let me just start off by saying I was wrong about Emry. I assumed that just because she wasnt’ talking like Braelyn was at her age, she must be behind or a little slow in learning. She has proved me otherwise.
Although she chooses not to use many verbal skills (they are improving though!) she is the most tactile and agile little tyke I have ever seen. She was walking by 9 months, she climbs on everything in sight, she has amazing hand eye coordination and she is fully potty trained at 22 months! She really knows her little body.
I thought potty training would be a nightmare because of the communication barrier. In fact, I wasn’t even going to attempt it until at least 2 1/2. I guess there is something to be said about having older siblings because all of the sudden she wanted to pee on the potty like Braelyn. And pee she did! And poop.
And you know the best thing? She doesn’t even care about having a baby potty or little toilet seat. Because I wasn’t prepared for her potty training this early, I didn’t have those things on hand. She goes on the big toilet and doesn’t know any different. It is quite the sight seeing her little midget frame being engulfed by a monstrous potty. But hey, she doesn’t seem to mind. And she goes in public. What a breeze! How did I get so lucky?!
IMG_7698 (click here for video)
She sure loves her Frozen underwear though.
I was putting Braelyn’s panties on her for a few days until we could make it to the store to buy some smaller pairs (which apparently they don’t have…grrr). I held up a few packages for her to choose which characters she wanted. After she chose Frozen, I opened them up to see how big they were. They were huge! Literally two of her squishy little bums could fit into a pair. So I opened the Bubble Guppies package to compare sizes. The Bubble Guppies were slightly smaller. I went to trade packages with Emry and the chucked the Bubble Guppies package on the ground and began screaming until I returned her Frozen panties.
Girls got an opinion. Now she walks around the house saying, “Anna” and pulling up her shirt in attempts to show everyone her special new panties.
Boy do I love my two kiddos.
I’m going to admit I am not the most patient mom ever. The selfless mothering thing is hard for me. I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I admire those women whose lives revolve around their children. I wish I was more like that.
But it is moments like these, moments when your children excel, that you are reminded you are doing an okay job. I truly am grateful for my little family: sassiness, temper tantrums, opinionated outbursts and all. Love you Braelyn Boo and Emry Pie!
