Update-o-rama

A little of everything.

Katherine's hand is healing remarkably well. Her fractured finger is slowly reducing its size back to normal and is quite a bit less purple. The other two fingers are great, with one nail seeming to start its peeling routine. I don't know how long it will hang on but about half has loosened up from the skin below. She's down to just the fingers wrapped and a bit of ACE bandage around her 2nd and 3rd fingers to keep them moderately stable. She's upset about missing P.E. (swimming) and being delegated clean-up duty during that time. I agree, it's not fair. She has dropped Tae Kwon Do in favor of piano lessons, but because of her hand, everything is off for the moment.
Rebecca is a Jekyll and Hyde. At home, well, she's oftentimes none too pleasant. At school, she's a charm. Yesterday after Daisies, two separate adults told me how mature she is, how helpful, how much she participates and how she always has something to add to the group. OK, maybe they're really just saying she's pushy and a blabbermouth, but I'll take what I can and I told her how proud I was of her being so good. Friday is supposed to be the Alphabet Read-a-thon with the ECLC classes. I'm planning on going for the second half which includes the picnic and read-a-thon, I hope Rebecca won't be too disappointed with that. It's a full day affair with activities solid from 7:30 to 2:15.
Nicholas has learned to say Yoda, Padme and Nice. We're getting there. Still no news about the speech therapist. He's starting to learn some sight words, including Nicholas, Jonathon, Mommy, Daddy, Katherine, Rebecca. And some letters including O, H, N and S. I didn't realize he knew the difference but in an exercise with 3X5 cards a couple weeks ago he got them right. I've started teaching him the letter sounds instead of the letter names in hopes that when we get to real sounding out, it'll be much simpler. I tried the "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 easy Lessons" but he's not up to that level of focussing yet, so we're doing it informally and the letter sounds is something the book suggested.
Nicholas is still very much into Star Wars and lightsabers (or lightsavers as the girls call them). At the end of the Phantom Menace he always gets a little down, wondering why HE can't become a Jedi too. It's tough being three. Of course in his world he'd be a Harry Potter Jedi with Spiderman webs.
Jonathon is potty trained. All day and all night. The only drawback is that he cannot pull his clothes on and off (one of the signs of p/t readiness) so it's a mad dash for both of us to the bathroom if he's clothes. We still do a lot of naked time. He can also pedal his tricycle which is pretty cool and he's taken an interest in letters and numbers. When we were at the hospital he kept going over the letters in the big CASHIER sign, repeating them as I said them. Nifty.
Ian earned his wings on Saturday. He did his solo take-off, flight and landing and was summarily doused with creek water. He wrote all about his adventure so go read it there.
Monday night was an informal reception at the Ambassador's residence for new arrivals, departing personnel and community/office sponsors. Ian's shuttle wasn't due to leave the Embassy until after 5 and the reception started at 5:30, so I went to pick him up and we arrived at the residence in a torrential downpour. At least everyone there was soggy so we didn't feel out of place. There were enough people there I knew to make it pleasant and even while the lights flickered we all made the best of it. I finally met Dr. Ricciardone, the Ambassador's wife. She reminds me a lot of Ian's mom.
We're selling our house in Virginia. Yup, 6 months and the tenants got orders to move on, so rather than continue with the property manager, we're going to put the house on the market and hopefully make a big enough profit to become debt-free and take some hoped for trips. Everyone cross your fingers for us.
My parents have sent us great packages. This last one had new workbooks for the kids and I hope to break into them this coming week. Thanks!
I'm part of several gift exchanges this year, I figure there are some interesting things here to share, so why not. It's fun mailing items out to people, especially when they aren't expecting them. Are you wondering now?