One issue that we ran into with Kamy this month was a lack of gratefulness. She was not seeing the connection between being thankful and gracious when someone does something nice and those things happening again in the future. It was particularly blatant after our day trip to Breckenridge in Colorado. She flat-out refused to tell Keller thank you for taking her. After discussing it, we decided to give Kamy a choice. If she could show that she was thankful for the next week, we would take her to Six Flags on the way home. If, however, she remained stubborn, Caden and Daddy would go but she would not. Six Flags was running a sale on 2017 season tickets, which included parking, the rest of the 2016 season, and admission to Hurricane Harbor! We thought it would be fun to take the kids and having season tickets makes it a lot easier to go for a few hours and then leave and not feel like you’ve wasted a lot of money. So, we would be purchasing a ticket for her anyway, it was just a question of whether she’d get to use it or not.
Surprise surprise, it WAS possible for Kamy to be thankful! She still needed some prompting here and there, but it was not begrudging or defiant. So, the four of us went to Six Flags! Kamy did great and she loves the roller coasters. She is *barely* 48″ tall if she stretches and wears the right shoes, so she can ride most of the rides.
We rode the carousel (of course!), the Bobsled, the rocking boat, drove the Antique Cars, the kids rode the Boots, then we took the train before they did the smaller swings, the mini mine train, the runaway mine train, Judge Roy Scream, and Shockwave. Kamy and Daddy even did the Skyscreamer swings that are 400′ high! No thank you, please. We did a LOT! These were definitely the biggest roller coasters that either kid had done before, and they had a lot of fun!
We left Caden with Min in DFW for the next couple days, so Kamy and I got some one on one time while Daddy was working. We were waaaay out of routine after our three weeks in Colorado, so she was definitely searching for more Momma-input than usual. Her play buddy was missing!
The CCC consignment sale was this month too. Kamy went with me to drop off our items and then she got to “browse” and point out things that she liked. You couldn’t buy anything that day, but she could tell me what she was hoping I’d buy for her. I found a lot of clothes for the both of them, but one dress in particular caught Kamy’s eye. It was a handmade dress from Etsy and it called her name. My usual price for a dress is $10, so I told her she’d have to pay the extra $15 if I bought it. She was more than willing to spend some of her lemonade stand money on it and she loves the dress. It’s big and poofy and pink!
Kamy has also become more encouraging to Caden lately. He’s been learning how to ride his bike without training wheels, and she has been very helpful! She’ll give him suggestions and tell him, “You can do it Caden!” Again, these are little things that often come naturally to Caden, but I am very proud of how hard Kamy is trying to do it too. It’s important!
School is getting back on track. Math has mostly been reviewing subtraction and double digit addition. She’s working on a new handwriting program that is helping make her letters more consistent sizes. We started learning about Asia and the kids made Chinese paper fans. We’ve also been talking about hummingbirds since they are swarming our feeders and are getting ready to migrate.