While the big kids do not change as rapidly as Lydia right now, they are growing up quickly. Here is a quick rundown of each big kid and how they're handling this pandemic.
Ashton:
Ashton officially finished kindergarten and passed. We loved her teacher this last year. While the teacher may not have been a great academic teacher, I truly appreciated how she helped Ashton emotionally. Ashton struggles with uncertainties in her day. For instance, if it was library day but the library was closed at school, Ashton would have a difficult time processing that and understanding the new plan/schedule. Her teacher decided to make Ashton the daily planner and put her in charge of explaining the day to the class. It was perfect and we never had any issues with it the rest of the year. Miss Garcia often told us that she would say a joke or something funny under her breath but Ashton would hear it and start laughing. They shared jokes throughout the year and always shared strawberries for lunch.
Ashton misses school. When I asked her if she'd want to be homeschooled, she quickly said, "No way!" She has adapted well to staying home so much. She is learning to write cursive as well as improve her drawing skills. Her reading and writing has just taken off. She can read most things now in English and Spanish. When she writes, she will sometimes mix up the letters/sounds in English and Spanish. So the word, "highest" is spelled with a "g" as that is the sound in Spanish. Her math is way beyond where she needs to be. I credit this to the hundreds of games of Yahtzee we've been playing this spring/summer. Ashton is excited to go to first grade and continue in the dual immersion program.
Ashton has continued piano lessons throughout all of this with remote teaching. Her big achievements are transitioning to playing a full C major scale (rather than the 5 finger scales) and learning G major scale.
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| Reading a book to her siblings |
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| She often will do her chores with minimal complaining. But when she does, it makes up for all the times she doesn't complain. |
Tanner:
Oh Tanner... He is at a tricky age. He desperately wants to be like Ashton and do everything she's doing but he physically can't. He really wants to draw intricate pictures but his fine motor skills aren't there quite yet. This leads to some complaining and tantrums. He loves all things space and Star Wars. I love this because he finds those books very interesting and loves to read them. I am working on him identifying his letters but I'm not too much in a rush. The plan right now is for him to attend preschool at a nearby church two days a week in the fall. But we will see how that goes. In the back of my mind, I am also preparing for the idea that he may need to have preschool at home. I think he really just wants something to be all his. He really thrived when Ashton was at school and Tanner was top dog at home. He misses that. I am excited that he will have a classroom and friends that are just his, not shared with Ashton.
His t-ball league started back up a few weeks ago. He really enjoys that and looks forward to his games. His first game got rained out so we'll try again next week. I don't know if this will stick for him or not. We were just saying that he'd probably love to visit the space center more. But we'll see how the rest of the season goes.
Gemma:
Oh sweet Gemma. She is the perfect mix between annoying little sister and the sweetest girl. She knows exactly which one to be at any given moment. Her verbal skills continue to explode and always surprises me with words I don't think most 2 year olds know. She is quite the flopper and knows exactly when to fall to the floor in desperation of attention. Gemma HATES her hair being touched, brushed, put in a hair tie, etc. So that's fun... She's pretty opinionated and that combined with her verbal skills, she can definitely tell us what she wants but more importantly, what she doesn't want. Overall, Gemma plays decently with her siblings except for stealing toys or destroying Lego creations. Our struggle with her right now is eating foods aside from milk. She continues to love drinking milk and doesn't consume much else. But I go with the idea of "pick your battles" and figure she'll eventually change.
