After the July 4th weekend, we spent a week in DFW for my laser eye surgery. Granpops and Daddy helped tremendously with the kids while I was out of commission. Saturday morning they took both kids to Sandy Lake, a local amusement park for kids. They had a great time and Kamy got to ride her first roller coaster with Daddy! They also found a carousel (Kamy’s favorite of course), a pony ride, and other carnival rides.
Sunday afternoon we went to the aquarium at Grapevine Mills, which both kids really enjoyed too. Their favorites were the colorful fish, though the sharks were interesting too.
Kamy’s writing is getting much clearer and she can write most capital letters without any guidance or templates to copy. We are definitely still working on writing all the letters the same size, but she understands the mechanics for most of the letters. She’s beginning to learn the phonics sound for the letters as well — a precursor to learning to read. At this point I am still letting her decide what and how much she is interested in learning. I am not planning on a structured “homeschooling” plan for this fall and will probably wait until fall 2015 when she is 5 to start working through a kindergarten level curriculum. That being said, she has a stack of work books (primarily writing and counting) that she enjoys doing.
“Miss Apricot Nosy-Nose” is Kamy’s new nickname for the month. She’d already picked up “Miss Nosy-Nose,” but one day Kamy tacked on Apricot. When asked what an “apricot nosy-nose” was, she replied: “It’s when you put an apricot in your mouth and be nosy!” Silly girl!
If you haven’t noticed yet, Kamy is super competitive. We usually race to the bedroom when it is jammies time and she’s always yelling, “Who’s gonna get there first!” When she ends up in second (or worse, last!), sometimes she gets frustrated and tells me she wasn’t playing or I’m not allowed to race or insert complaint here. We are doing our best to talk about the competition being the fun part and not just winning, but it sometimes feels like it is falling on deaf ears. =) She is a bit of a perfectionist too, so we have our hands full on encouraging her to try things she doesn’t know how to do and to keep practicing to get better. She has a tendency to try something two or three times and declare, “I can’t.” We have banned the use of that phrase when we are talking about something, but the attitude still persists. She loves to play games on the WiiU with Daddy — MarioKart 8 (aka: Donkey Cars) and Super Mario. They’re starting to try a few other games as well, but those are the favorites for now.
One of Kamy’s daily responsibilities is setting napkins on the table at meal time. Most of our napkins are the same, but we have one red napkin. Kamy gets to choose who gets which napkin since she sets the table, so it has become the de-facto sign of her daily favorite person. 50% of the time she gives it to herself, 30% to Daddy, and 15% to me. On occasion she even gives it to Caden! It is a very reliable indicator of her mood for the day! She’s also been tasked with wiping the table off after meal time too, though this may get shifted to Caden’s responsibility soon.
Lastly, we heard two great lines from Miss Kamy that were worth writing down:
- “Caden, I have no idea what you’re talking about, but that’s okay!”
- <While in her car seat, riding in the car> “Maybe one day when I am really old and my window is open very wide I will see a bird outside my window and I will jump out of my window and land on the bird and the bird will take me to Disney World. That’s what I’ve been dreaming about for years and YEARS!”
Oh my Kamy-girl, we love you!