Updates: Isis

I think it's kind-of hilarious that I haven't posted since January. It's June. The end of June. I also think it's funny that the last time I posted it was to say I went back to work. Are we thinking maybe going back to work with 2 kids threw me for a loop? I'd definitely say that is a valid assumption.
But here we are, June 22. Isis is 3 1/2. Lux is 8 1/2 months. It is summer. I am home. We are all finally hitting our stride. I'm no longer scared to take 2 of them out by myself. I have started grad school to get my Masters & I'm a few days away from being done with my first 8 week session. I feel like I can finally breathe and it's time to share some updates. (I'm going to split these into 2 posts because it's been so long & I have so much to say!)

Isis   Communication & Emotions Boy do we have a talker! That personality is coming out full force! Isis loves to talk. She'll even sit down and go, "Mommy, let's talk." She wants me to ask her questions and she will ask me questions. We will discuss our favorites (food, movies, princesses, books) and things we are thankful for. She is really showing her sensitive side, for better or worse. She will come up and put her hand on your cheek and look straight in your eyes with no shame and just say, "I love you. Do you know how much I love you? You're beautiful." It absolutely melts my heart. She is truly thoughtful. At the same time, she is sensitive about other things as well. We are still having some full-blown tantrums and crying fits. They aren't all the time, but they tend to happen most often when she's somehow had her feelings hurt or she's accidentally hurt someone else. She is really sensitive. I tend to view the world long-term and I am trying to help her name her feelings and sort through what she's feeling because ultimately I know that this sensitivity as a child will turn into a truly beautiful sensitivity to the world around her and the people in the world. I am excited to see that part of her personality develop.   Cognitive One of my first grad school classes was Advanced Human Development and we had to create a matrix of a person's life and developments from birth to age 18. So I'm thinking in terms of that matrix now, of course, because I'm both a mom and a teacher and it overlaps sometimes. So excuse the fancy "cognitive" label for this section, but it made sense to me!   Isis knows her colors. She can count to about 15 correctly and can identify numbers through 9 correctly about 80% of the time. She can say her ABC's and is starting to be able to identify some of the correct letters and sounds. She's understanding concepts of time, although pretty much anything in the past is "yesterday" and future is either "tomorrow" or "later."  She's getting better at simple puzzles. She loves to tell stories, sing and play make-believe. She now has several imaginary friends that we are instructed to say hello to regularly. She's understanding gender differences in conversation, such as saying "she" or "him," although the uses will be wrong frequently. "Her likes to play dress up with me."   Movement She runs, jumps, tries to balance on one foot, climbs anything she can, runs, rides a tricycle, walks forward and backwards and just recently has started to love doing yoga with me! She calls it "yoga yoga" and her favorite positions are downward dog, tree pose, triangle and plow. We have signed her up for a movin' and groovin' summer camp in July where they will focus on yoga, dance and tumbling! I think she will love it and her aunt Ellen will be volunteering, so she will feel more comfortable!   Motor skills She can cut along a line with child's scissors. She can draw a face. She can paint.  She can copy shapes like circles, squares, and x's. She can dress and undress for the most part without help. She can even do buttons!!   Other We recently took her to the preschool program at church for the first time and then we snuck in the back to watch! She loved it!! It was really neat. They do a little community time at the beginning where they just play and get to know the kids at church, then they go in for the whole group where they sing and a woman tells a story. This time they learned that God made everything and they did a song and saw pictures about things that God made. Then they go back into the first room for life group time where they talked more about things God made and they colored pictures. I really loved it and loved talking to her on the way home about it all! We asked her what she learned and she goes, "God made everything!" And then told us about how He made her and He made flowers and snowmen and everything. It was really fun. I'm going to start doing Bible verses with her on her bathroom mirror to memorize what they are talking about at church.   We also have decided to sign her up for dance classes in the fall! She will go once a week and it is a kinder-dance, so they will do a mixture of ballet and tap. There will be a little holiday review at Christmas and then a recital in the spring. She's going to do it with a friend of hers, so I think they'll have a lot of fun!!
She also starts preschool in the fall at an all-day Montessori school close to our house. We went to visit a while ago and I thought it would be great for her! She keeps talking about school and we bought a backpack, so she's pretty excited!