School and lines

It is my baby's first day of kindergarden tomorrow! I am excited and at the same time really sad! She went to preschool last year, but now she is going to all day school and starting lots of new activities! I am SO proud of Emma and what an amazing smart and good girl she is, although if I could keep her little forever I probably would! I am excited to see how her first day goes tomorrow. I am going to be a room mom in her room so I will get to help out and be a part of her class! She is joining several activities as well. She will be doing swimming lessons, poms, and Awana! It blows my mind how once school starts kids lives get SO busy! I worry about having enough time to spend with her! I just have to add, in the process of writing this Emma was a "spring chicken" we caught, cooked and ate, we talked about the chrysalis (we cant call it a cocoon!) we have in a jar, read a book, and have talked spanish! She is so smart is just constantly amazes me! And she certainly has the best imagination EVER!

Grace's life is changing lots too! We started really focusing on her communication when we moved here. We had amazing oppurtunities with Birth to 3, they have done amazing with Grace! Our initial focus was simply to get her to communicate. We had to reinforce You ask, you get. So if she asked for it she got it! It was great at getting her to talk, but it was also creating a monster we knew we would have to deal with at some point. Gradually we worked at shaping our responses to her, we do not always say yes, but we try to avoid no (although we do say no sometimes now as well) by being careful in how we word it. She has just blossomed in her speech! SO it is time to reevaluate what our goals are. We need to work on getting her talk to other people now, and we also need to start addressing the "bossy" behavior. She is use to getting everything she wants and if she throws a fit she gets her "calm down" items. She has definitely started using screaming and fit throwing to get what she wants. Up to now we have mostly ignored her when she does this, but I think it is time to really start addressing it. We have finally been able to establish "time-outs" in her room. Today was her first big one and it went pretty well. It took her a long time to calm down, and she is still getting upset quickly, but its a good start! Now that she has the language skills we just have to start getting her to use them! I am beginning to see a lot of impulse control issues with her. Some seem pretty ordinary for her age, but I also see some that have the potential to get out of control if we dont address them now! Well, this is about all the time I have to sit down for the moment! We off to play some games now!