All our puppies left home, and now we have had two kittens join our family. One day in late April, I sent Peter and Victoria to the supermarket to get the groceries. A couple of hours later they came back with several bags. I opened one up to find two little faces staring back at me! It seems Victoria asked if they could go to the pet store, and Peter just couldn't resist once he got there. They are two little girl kittens, one tortoiseshell, one tabby. Kathleen immediately named the tabby Tiger. I suggested Lily for the other one. For the first couple of weeks Tiger wasn't growing at all so we took her to the vet and now she is happy and healthy, if still a lot smaller than Lily. Lily is the boisterous one, full of personality. Tiger is quiet but becoming more playful as she gets stronger. Both kittens are very patient with being carried around, cuddled and fought over by the children.Kathleen is doing very well at school. She loves school, although doesn't really like getting up in the morning or having to hurry (but then again who does? especially on these cold mornings lately!).
Academically she is doing very well. She is reading at Level 9 (no one else in her class is at this level yet) [EDIT: Level 11 now], and every day brings home a book to read for homework. Her writing is good. For a while she would come home from school and just want to draw pictures, and her pictures would always include words in them. The teachers seem to encourage the children to sound the words out to themselves and write them how they think they are spelt. I guess proper spelling comes at a later date. It makes for some very cute and inventive spellings. I think my favourite is "I am hape" (happy). Kathleen also does well at math although I don't hear very much about it from her. She can count on her fingers, she can count quietly in her head while visualising her fingers, but she's not yet at the point of just knowing that 3 + 3 is 6 for example.
Kathleen's favourite part of the school day is what they call "motor programme". In the morning, after the teacher has done the roll, the children will all head outside for half an hour of exercise. Not just physical education but things that develop their motor skills, such as cone ball (trying to catch the ball in the cone that you're holding), skipping, balancing, hopping. She has learnt a lot of physical skills since starting school. She loves swinging on the bars and last term when I would come to pick her up from school I would always find her on the playground. There is a group of them from her classroom who are always the last to leave every day. School finishes at 2.25 but I usually arrive to pick her up sometime between then and 3 as we never leave before 3. Howver this term things are a bit different as Kathleen has started catching the bus home from school a couple of days a week. It was something she asked if she could do. It suits me not having to rush out in the afternoons to collect her. However on the days when Victoria is at daycare I still pick them both up. I think Kathleen feels quite grown up catching the bus and walking home by herself. She also gets to check the mailbox on her way home and brings me the mail. She and Victoria used to fight over who was going to collect the mail, now we have set days of the week about who's turn it is.Kathleen is making lots of friends in her class. At the start of the year there were two girls and four boys in the class. Now there are five girls and seven boys. I regularly hear about the different children she is playing with, not just from her class but from other classes too. I quite like that about this school, not sure if it is a country school thing or not, but all the children seem to play together regardless of age. I think Kathleen may have had a tough time fitting in at first but this seems to have settled down now and she is enjoying playdates with some of the kids from her class. Last month Kathleen and Victoria went for a sleepover at their friend Molly's house (their first ever sleepover!) and then Molly and Olivia from school both came for a sleepover at our house.
The other big thing Kathleen is learning at school is how to swim. Every Wednesday afternoon the school bus picks the junior classes up from school and takes them to the swimming pool in town. Their teacher gets in the water with them and does various exercises with them, no doubt aimed at building up their confidence. And it is working. Kathleen has always been too scared to put her head or face under the water. Then all of a sudden, last week during her lesson, she ducked her head under. And after that there was no stopping her, she was diving down to get the rings from the bottom of the pool. Obviously there is still a long way to go, but her confidence has just increased so much, it is amazing. With so much else going on, we have stopped going to ballet.
Finally, Kathleen has lost her two bottom front teeth (naturally, not because of an accident or anything). She's the first in her class to lose teeth. The tooth fairy gave her $5 the first time and $2 the second time. She was very excited and took it to school for Show & Tell (her other favourite thing I think). We went into town and she bought some stickers with the money and made lots of pictures. She loves drawing and creating pictures. Her drawings are very detailed.
And now, we mustn't forget Victoria.
Victoria is now three and a half. Sometimes I forget she's only three and treat her more like Kathleen. She is now going to daycare two days a week (Thurs-Fri) and to Playcentre two days a week (Tues-Wed). She has some good friends at each place. One little girl at daycare is her best friend and they play together all day. This little girl has a big brother who is in Kathleen's class and is one of Kat's friends, so the four of them all get on really well.Victoria has been causing me much frustration since about the time she turned three. I remember Kathleen also went through a very similar phase at this age. She is trying to assert her independence, do things her way, do what she wants, doesn't want to do what Mummy wants. Which is all very well when all she wants is to pour herself a drink, but not so good when Mummy wants her to get dressed for school or brush her teeth or come eat dinner, etc, etc.
She often wants to have a go at doing things for herself and I know I need to step back and let her try more often. She's getting faster at putting her own clothes on which is great (just needs me to motivate her to actually do it), she's getting better at pouring drinks without spilling (just wish she'd shut the fridge door or let me know what she's doing), but I need to let her help me with other things more often.
Something I've noticed about Victoria is how much she enjoys both mazes and maps. She must have good spatial awareness. She enjoys doing simple mazes. Sometimes we've made our own out of blocks, other times we've borrowed maze and puzzle books from the library (Kathleen really loves the puzzle books). Victoria understands how to read a map, will get the map out in the car and ask where we are going. She often asks where something when we are driving, or where we are.Victoria is very competent on the computer, knows how to turn on both her computer and the TV computer, and how to load up her favourite computer games or DVDs. Doesn't know as much as she thinks she does though and sometimes clicks on the wrong thing. I don't want to think what she'll be like in a couple of years when she can read, she'll be getting into everything.
Her favourite computer game is Pajama Sam. The girls got a game for Easter, and another one when we all went to a LAN gaming party at Massey (go geek family!). Victoria always wants to play Pajama Sam, either on the computer or pretend that she is Pajama Sam. She's always saying to me "I'm Pajama Sam, the new one" (meaning the one from the new game). Her style of play has really changed. She used to be happy to play with toys and dolls by herself. Now all of a sudden she wants to play pretend all the time. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, Kat loved playing pretend at that age too. What is good is that the two of them can now play together, yet they usually want (need?) me to join in too.
At bedtime we usually read two stories to both girls, Victoria's story first then Kathleen's story. Kathleen's story is usually a chapter from a chapter book. Usually it's one of my old Enid Blyton books (currently we're reading Willow Farm). But about a month ago we got a Rainbow Fairy chapter book out of the library, which both girls really enjoyed. There are seven books in the series and we've only read two so far. Will be looking to see if they have the next book at the library when we go next. [EDIT: We ditched Willow Farm in preference for reading Rainbow Fairies and Myths & Legends (another library book) instead. Have read the first three Rainbow Fairies book now, and have got the fourth one on hold at the library, hopefully pick it up tomorrow). So, anyway, we have been playing a LOT of Rainbow Fairy games since then. If I play then I'm usually the bad guy, Jack Frost, Victoria is ALWAYS Pajama Sam (the new one) even though he has nothing to do with Rainbow Fairies, and Kathleen is usually a fairy that needs rescuing or that I'm trying to capture/banish. As with all children's games, it gets a bit repetitive after a while. But both girls love it.
Finally, what else has been happening around here. Well winter is starting to set in after a long summer and warm autumn. Peter and I (but mostly him) cleared out our old woodpile that was under the ramp at the back of the house. He put down polythene on the ground and laid pallets down so we could stack our firewood neatly and tidily. He put up more polythene sheets along the ceiling and sides to make it weatherproof and it has mostly worked. We hired a log splitter for a couple of days and ended up cutting up quite a lot of firewood from tree rounds that had been sitting around (mostly in the bottom paddock) since we moved in over two years ago. I'm very pleased with the work we have done.I am also very pleased with the ride-on lawn mower that we bought this week after getting a good deal at the Lifestyle Farmers Fieldday last weekend. It is so nice to look outside and see nicely cut, even grass, not too long, not too short, no big lumps of grass all over the place, no tyre tread marks, no muddy areas where the grass has been ripped up.
Now it is the beginning of July and winter is in full swing. Noticed snow on the Tararua's today. We've had some rather cold mornings the last few weeks, but only one real frosty day (much to the disappointment of two little girls who think Jack Frost is a character from their book, come to life). We have been putting quite a dent in all that carefully stacked firewood!-Meg
