Parenting: 4 & 5-Year-Olds Community

I am here! I wish I could be here more...I miss you guys!

Kids are great! We are finally over all of our sicknesses which is good news. Michael is doing well in school....still struggling with reading but excelling in math! I FINALLY made the appt to have him tested for ADD...unfortunately the earliest appt isn't until March 20 but I made it.

Nathan is doing well....learning his letters and numbers. He has to get surgery next month to correct his "curly toes." It is a simple procedure but I am SO nervous for him.

Hope everyone else is doing well and having a great New Year!!

It's too quiet.

Both girls are doing well, but growing up too fast!

Elizabeth has her 100 days party today. It seems like not that long ago I was going to Emily's party.

It has been a crazy week for us too. Sunday we put our 14 month old to bed with a fever of 101 and when I checked on her at 9pm she was up to 104 (the Motrin just wore off). Of course I freaked out, DD#1 never had fevers that high. So we woke her, gave her Tylenol, changed her into light-weight clothes and then set-up the pack-n-play in our room so I could keep an eye on her. I woke twice more during the night and both times her temp was between 102 and 104. That day I decided to work from home even though my mom was going to watch her. She was extremely fussy all day and her temp never got much lower than 101, so we took her to the doctor. She had no other symptoms except the doctor said her throat was red, so they tested for strep but that came back negative. I was told to keep doing fever reducer and to push fluids but if her fever wasn't down and no new symptoms by Tuesday they wanted to do a blood test. Tuesday morning 4am she woke screaming with a temp of 104 again but then when she woke at 6:30 she was completed soaked and her temp was down to 99. I once again worked from home with my mom there and then at 12pm took her for the blood work, per the doctor because they wanted to rule out UTI. Thankfully the blood results came back that she just had a viral infection, so she stayed at home with my mom again while I finally went to work. Today she went back to daycare since she woke with a temp of 98 and her fever was gone all day yesterday.

DH and I have been so exhausted. Him from working like crazy...busy time of year and me from working while helping my mom take care of a sick baby and running her around to all these doctor's appointments. Not to mention taking care of our 4 year old! Luckily she hasn't had any cold symptoms.

I heard at daycare yesterday that 3 teachers were out with flu like symptoms and that attendance was down by almost 50%. This is a nasty nasty cold/flu season!

This is a nasty season. It hit early here in Texas but it is still going, according to the school nurse.

We have a half day of school tomorrow and then the kids are off until Wednesday - Monday for MLK day and Tuesday for the heck of it, as far as I can tell. Seems like we just got back from vacation. I have a guy upstairs now painting DD"s bedroom which is really exciting for us (Ok for DD and I, DH could care less lol)...the room is moss green, as is the whole upstairs, so we are painting it a beautiful soft pink to match a new comforter she got for Christmas. I bought all sorts of cute stuff to redecorate with, including picture frames, a floor lamp, and curtains. We are going on a little shopping trip this weekend to let her pick some stuff out herself too, I can't wait. The best part is not having to do the painting myself - this is the first time in my life I have hired someone else to do the job.

We've decided to move DS to preschool. I was trying to wait until fall since he misses the cutoff for Kindergarten by 26 days this year so I planned to do preschool instead. Problem is all of the 'big kids' have moved on at his home day care and are only there a few days a week. And he's bored with all the new babies. So, he'll start preschool in February. He's pretty excited.

Work is insane and I'm not getting to any of the house cleaning. I finally talked DH into a cleaning company coming every other week...now I just need to find someone to hire! In my spare time.....

DH and I are playing hooky today. It has been a very long time since we have done this. We will go to the weekly assembly at Levi's school, his class will be singing something as part of the MLK activities at school. Afterwards, we will go look at some art and go out to lunch.

Levi is excelling at school and has his first official spelling test today. They not only have to spell the words but have to sort them based on whether they are long a sounds in a CVVC or a CVCE pattern or a short a sound in a CVC pattern or if they are an a vowel word that is an oddball like said and want.

Deb, have you done visual displays for multiplication? Like 4 rows of 3 object and so forth? This is how Levi figured out the concept.

Hey Steph! I was catching up on old posts the other day and saw you took Levi to the grinch - that must have been cool. I can't even get Lily to sit through "The Little Mermaid" on the couch at home lol.

I think it was Sandra who mentioned multiplication, and I was going to suggest the same thing. You could explore grouping with something as common as cheerios. (If you are not already). We are doing this with Lily as well and she is catching on, but not pushing it since it is not yet part of her curriculum.