Obviously this will be about Toni. The blog is, after all, called Bagel. Don't get it? Read the beginning. Anyway, my last post was shortly before her 3rd birthday, which is May 12. Well she is now 4 years old and I basically missed a whole year of her life in my blog. Can I recap? Really, really high level because let's face it... the older I get the more forgetful I get. Even if it is just a year.
So so here goes. At some point after turning three, Toni decided she would be potty trained and be done with pull ups. Just. Like. That. No lie. I always knew she knew how to use the potty and when to use it, but the girl is too dang smart for her own good sometimes. And well, she just didn't feel like being potty trained I guess. And from what I recall, right before the time frame that she decided she was trained, we kind of gave up. Not really gave up, but more like fine. Do it on your own time. And I know, they always say that's the best way to do it or you make the whole process last longer. But our kid is different right? hah. They (whoever they are) were exactly right. Well we learn for baby 2 (whenever that may be)? I don't know. Probably not.
So she was trained just like that and from that day forward, we never used another diaper or pull up again and the accidents were very few. To date, she's a pro. She hardly needs our assistance. Except for #2 because she isn't very... thorough. And the little surprises during the laundry time... bleh! TMI? too bad.
Seems like ages, now, that she learned... decided to be potty trained.
Her speech is ever so changing. She's always spoken well for her age and as she develops it just gets better and I am forever amazed by this girl. She's pretty darn smart too! She knows all her planets IN ORDER. Do I know that? Not anymore! She can count to.... I'm not sure. She just keeps going on and I think my wheels never stop spinning so at some opinet I stop paying attention. Bad mommy. Sorry but I'm just glad she can count to however far that is! 50? 60? 100? She can count in spanish also but only to twenty. She knows all her months and days and also all of them in spanish. Her reading has improved and she can read beginner books. She went through the Your Baby Can Read series and did really well! After that, I moved her to BOB Books. There are 12 levels and obviously we started at level 1. It has small sentences like 'Mat. Sam. Mat sat. Sam sat. Mat sat on Sam.' She did really well with all of level 1.
I neer did move to level 2 but have every intention of doing so. I just caught on that it was starting to feel like a chore to her (reading) and I didn't want that. She loves books so much I'd hate to ruin it. After all she's just 3 (at the time) so we can chill on learning to read for a bit. We still read together and she got a Leap Frog Tag reader from her Lola Pat for Christmas. We moved on to math activities, patterns, etc. We bought workbooks and she loves them!
Sometimes I wonder, is this really my kid? Because I loved activity books (mazes, coloring, connect the dots) but these are workbooks. haha! Anyway, she completed her Pre-K books and I just bought her more.
Her writing... AMAZING! She can write her own name and her best friend, Ava's, name too. And when given the letters to spell someone else's name, she can write that too. That accomplishment happened closer to her 4th birthday.
Her reason and logic... amazing. Her sense of humor? Hilarious!!! She is so silly!!! That's an understatement. And she isn't shy. Her version of being is shy is.... "Toni can you sing?" "No I can't sing, because I'm just too shy right now." hahaahah! I'm pretty sure most shy kids would just shy away and not speak up and explain why. She is very social.
Her 4th birthday was last month and I still can't believe how much she's developed. She has definitely gotten out of her terrible three's stage WHICH turned out to be due to her boredom.
Oh there's a story I remember. Around her 3rd birthday and shortly after, she just kept misbehaving! And it wasn't like her but they say all kids have a stage. And she didn't really have a terrible two's so I assumed well here it is. The Terrible's! And she was getting into trouble at school. So after speaking with the director, the director pointed out that she is a very smart girl and knows all the answers to the teachers questions. So she wondered if Toni was getting bored and therefore misbehaving.
I've heard of this. In fact, my nephew went through this. So she suggested, let's move her into the 4 years old room and see how she does there. Well the first few weeks were a bit of a dollar coaster. First she loved it and did well and was not getting into any trouble. Then all of a sudden she NEVER wanted to go into that room and would start crying. so we thought, ok she maybe smart but maybe socially isn't ready to be with older kids. I wasn't sure about the latter because she has older cousins. But I didn't dismiss it either. So ok. Back to the 3 years olds. she started misbehaving again. she jumped rooms and was starting to go out of control partly, I think, because she was given all this freedom to choose a room. So finally, we (parents and director) had to be stern with her. We told her that she would go to the 4 year old room, she is smart enough for it, and she has no choice. She will do it even if she doesn't like it; it's what we want for her.
She obliged. And not more than a few days later she was crying again. Sigh. Frustrating. Long story short, she was having anxiety over the teacher. The teacher pinched her once and she has been frightened ever since. And she told us this and we didn't listen. Well, she said the teacher pinched her cheeks and she didn't like her because of it. Well, we thought, oh she meant no harm. It's just because you're cute. The director even had the teacher come aside with Toni and the teacher said she wouldn't do it again if it bothered her so much.
So we thought, case closed. Well the crying and resistance didn't stop and weeks later, it was found that this same teacher pinched another kid but actually took some skin off in the process. The parent was livid... as she should be. Needless to say, that teacher was fired on the spot. And I felt so bad I didn't listen to my baby.
Since then, she has had no issues! and as she has been in the 4 year olds class for a year now, I suspect she is again getting bored. She doesn't get into trouble, but she is biting her nails now! And when I ask what she learned, she tells me like it's old news. Well it's summer break so we'll see how her last year in pre-school goes before she turns 5 and goes off to kindergarten!
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