Stroke of Good Luck & Updates
The other day Nathan and I set out to gather our playroom pallets, wood, and wine crates to make his storage and shelving with for his playroom. I ended up scoring several wine crates, a pallet (one was all I had room for), and a car load of wood for less than $9 total! I am really excited and hope that I can start on his shelving/toy boxes soon. I am going to do some built-in shelving using the existing ledge as a platform to support the shelves on either side of the bay window downstairs.
Anyhow, Nathan is growing up so fast. The other day, while wearing my ‘ears’, I heard him trying to sing one of the songs I made up for him. I am looking forward to starting home school preschool with him in October. I have already started working on teaching him basic knowledge. He can recognize and correctly (verbally) name most, if not all of his letters. He can recite the rainbow colors in order (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple).
He can count to ten by himself in English, understand it in sign language, and repeat after me in Japanese. He can spell his name. He knows all of his regular alphabet cards and can tell you the picture on the other side if you only show him the letter. For example, show him the letter A, and he’ll say apple; K, and he’ll say kite. One of his favorite things to do is run up to me with something he finds to point out the item that he knows and is color. Sometimes when he is in a silly mood, he’ll mess up reciting or give me the wrong answer and then laugh and laugh as if it is the most hilarious thing ever! For example, the other day while reciting numbers, he stopped at the number 5. So I prompted him by asking him what comes after the number 5. He said, “Two!” and then burst into laughter. The rest of the day the number two was his answer to my every question followed by the silly laughing. Really cute!
I also want to introduce the game of chess to him during his 2nd year because I really think that this is something that he will take to very quickly. He loves memory games and challenges, so chess seems like something that he will like very much.
The child does not forget anything and is very tenacious about what he knows. The other day, he pointed to a spot on a plastic shovel and said, ‘Moom.’ I told him that it was in fact not a moon but a shovel. He persisted in saying ‘moom’ over and over until I looked up close, and sure enough a tiny moon was etched into the shovel as a trademark of the brand.
Awhile back he pointed at a package in our bathroom and said, bubbles! I told him that yes, we like our bubbles and then asked him how many. He said the phrase (how many) for the first time. A few days later he somehow got into our bathroom and fetched said package. He ran up to me, pointed out the bubbles, then said, How many? He does. Not. Forget. Anything!
I really believe that he will be reading by age 3. He is a few months away from turning 2 and the next logical step from knowing letters and most of the sounds they make is to start with reading sight words and learning to put words together. I am not pushing him at all to do this. He genuinely enjoys learning and reciting things. Anyone will tell you that I have to hide educational materials like flashcards, or else he will get upset if I won’t sit down and let him go over them over and over.
I am really, really lucky and thank God everyday for letting me have this child. I thank my hubby on a very regular basis for letting me stay at home with Nathan and supporting the homeschooling option. We are strongly considering homeschooling for at least part or most of his primary education, and for all of his preschool education. Then possibly private school after that if the public school system is not up to par, or if the school system does not accept him into their gifted programs because this child is obviously very bright. I mean, consider this: if all goes as planned, then he should start the 5-6 year old educational level when he is 3. I think this means that by the time he is old enough for kindergarten that he will be starting 2nd grade around age 5, middle school at age 8, and high school level at age 11 or so.
Of course, I am not sure at all if this will come to fruition. All I am focusing on now is just making sure that he is not being held back or slowed down at all educationally/intellectually strictly due to age alone. I think that there is nothing more tragic to a bright mind than to prevent them from learning all they can. I believe that it is my duty as his parent to make sure that he has every opportunity he needs to become successful at whatever he wants to do.
Anyhow, that is all that I have at the moment for his developments. Tomorrow a friend is coming over for a play date and we are both *really* looking forward to it! We are both into many of the same things with regards to homemaking. We both make soap, laundry detergent, do serious couponing, like organic foods, and make our own natural cleaning products.
Speaking of, I found some awesome recipes! One of them I just made is a soap recipe using CRISCO. You know, the tub of lard that you fry chicken in? Yep- that crisco. I made some bars and LOVE the way it turned out! The soap is scentless, makes your hands majorly soft, is gentle, and lather up well enough to use as a shaving cream! It only has three ingredients (crisco, lye, and water) and is perfect for sensitive skin. I love it because it is works better than shaving cream and leaves legs feeling super soft. You can add other things to it but it is great as it is and is perfect for first timers like myself:
With the crisco soap, you can then make a gallon of liquid hand soap for dispenser for super cheap.
Just another mom blog... 