Star Wars Identities and Hyde Park

We took a trip to the Star Wars Identities exhibit at the O2 this week and it was AMAZING.

 Really educational as well as just having loads of awesome Star Wars memorabilia.

The kids were shocked by how small the ships were and couldn't believe that the real Millennium Falcon was not much bigger than the Lego one.

 The exhibit walks you through the lives of Anakin and Luke Sky-Walker, explaining how their identities were shaped by things like genetics, culture, parenting, beliefs and values, peer influence and more.

It also allows you to create your own character as you go.

It was really well done and definitely worth a visit if you are in London.

There's also a Nissan advertisement 'innovation centre' that we stopped for a play in. The kids loved the Virtual reality station and doing a quiz about the cars.

After that we went to the Diana Memorial for a play (it was a beautiful day) and got some juices from a market on Queensway.

All in all a really fun day out.

Human Microbiome

We've been talking about bacteria again (seriously, Cosmo is obsessed)!

So if you have a little one who'd like to understand more about the human microbiome, we found this video which is a great overview.

Learning Self-Regulation

I've heard over and over of parents who allow their toddlers to self regulate with food, claiming that if we leave them to it and don't interfere with 'on demand' feeding that children will learn to recognize their own hunger cues and equally know when they have had enough.

I like the principle - but I don't know anyone who has made it past about three years old.

photo credit

The reality is that society dictates we should eat at certain times, and it's kind of awkward if you refuse lunch whilst everyone is seated at the table and 20 minutes later you are hungry but mum has put everything away. So you either end up telling your kid when to eat - or feeding them junk because real food takes time and preparation.

Still, like I said, I like the principle.

It's something Cosmo's doctor told me about when he was very young and I was getting frustrated about him just wanting to watch the same DVD on loop, or when he just wanted to read the same book (or sometimes even the same page!) again and again. He said he's trying to puzzle something out. I assume that because he can read the words, he's got all the information, but particularly for children who learn to read early, being able to understand what they are reading may take more time.

He asked me to indulge him.
Read the same page 50 times if necessary, move on when he is ready.

Gosh, that took a lot of restraint from me, but it worked! He would watch the 20 minute DVD on loop (brilliant baby by the way if anyone is interested) but then he'd know everything on it and never choose to watch the same one again (at least not for a long time, and when revisiting an old DVD it was for comfort, watched once and then relegated to the 'I've seen that' pile).

We've been up against this battle again recently, only this time it's grated on me even more because his current obsession is Minecraft - and I am not a gamer.

Everything in me wanted to limit him to 20 minutes a day - or some other such rule - but having been through plenty of other past obsessions I let it play out properly.

My mum bought him the game for Christmas and for a couple of weeks I was convinced it was all he would do with all of his free time - and then we hit our breakthrough. He just turned around and said 'I think I'd like to take a break from minecraft for a little while'. He started playing legos with his sister again (boy, has she missed him!) and at the end of the day, it's only really been a two and a half week obsession.

He still enjoys playing minecraft, but he's also enjoying other things too and he doesn't play it for hours at a time.

So, here are my top tips for surviving obsession phases:

1) Try not to worry about making everything meaningful. I like to relax and read a magazine sometimes, or watch a movie. Not everything I do has value other than relaxation and not everything your child does needs to either.

2) Respect what they value. I don't love minecraft. I don't think it's awesome. But my son does and I wouldn't like it if he told me I couldn't look at pinterest because he doesn't think it's cool. Live and let live.

3) Find ways to work it into other things they might enjoy. Cosmo is currently working on a book of tips for his Dad so that he can learn how to play too. It's still Cosmo's favourite topic, but thankfully it's away from the computer screen!

Top tip for Minecraft... but also life in general...

4) If you really need to limit their time on something (eg. I don't want him sat at a PC all day) rather than saying no to it, find something else that will take up some of that time. If Cosmo wants to spend all his free time on the computer, but I don't want him to spend more than an hour, I need to find tasks that will take up all but an hour of his day, then he can play as long as he wants without a conflict. If you tell them they can't do something (or they can only do it for a limited time) it becomes the craved for 'forbidden thing'. I'd rather say 'of course you can play - right after we get back from the park and have picked up the groceries'.
We also have a rule where nobody has free time until they have completed their curriculum based activities for the day.

If you have anymore strategies, let me know. It might sound like I have it all sorted, but I really don't. It pains me to wait out an obsession, but it's totally worth it in the end. The result is a happier, less frustrated child, who learns how to self regulate their own time.

Giving the 'Happiness Advantage'

This weekend I read an interesting article in the Times about 'Dolphin Parenting' Which was Shawn Achor's reply to 'Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom'.

If you haven't heard of Shawn Achor I highly recommend listening to his TEDtalk on 'The Happiness Advantage' in the video below.

I've never been comfortable with the Tiger mom style principles, and although it's a little corny, I do love the 'dolphin parenting' idea. We have been able to implement a few of his ideas into our daily  homeschool routine and I'm already seeing positive outcomes.

So, if you want to join me in 'Dolphin Homeschooling' here are the ideas we are using so far:

1) watch a funny video on youtube and laugh about it together. 
Yes, daily. Laughing together is not only fun, but it releases endorphines which help you learn faster and retain information for significantly longer. Plus it's bonding.  

2) write down three things that you are grateful for. 
Teaching your child to scan the day for positive outcomes, within 21 days this becomes a habit, so make a month (or longer) of daily gratitude journalling.

3) One happy memory.
Also in our journal we write out one happy memory/favourite thing that happened today. I write this for Cosmo, as I don't want his emotional experience to be limited by frustration of spelling etc... I let him tell me his happy memory and then I ask leading questions like 'what happened next?' and 'how did you feel about that?'

4) An encouraging/positive note.
My children have facebook accounts. Don't worry, they don't know their own password and they are only friends with family members. It is useful for this exercise though, where I ask him to send one encouragement or note of praise to somebody.

Shawn Achor points out that IQ isn't really a great predictor of success or happiness. How positive you are and how well connected you are with your support network are much more important predictors of both. These exercises done daily will build habits, and habits become character and destiny, according to someone much smarter than me.

'Sow an act, and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, and you reap a character;
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny'
                                                      -Samuel Smiles
 
 In just three days my son is already way more positive. He is finding all kinds of things to be grateful for, he's stopping during the day to point out that 'this is going to be my happy memory when we journal!' and he's saying encouraging things to me and his sister.

This stuff works, so let's give our kids the Happiness advantage :0)

Photo credit

Brain Quest

Cosmo was lucky enough to be bought a gift from one of the boys we live with, all the way from the United States!

The gift is a set of flash cards called 'Brain Quest' which I had never heard of, but they are brilliant. Each little pack is a notebook full of strips with different categories of questions on and answers on the card behind.

Cosmo was bought a grade 3 pack, bearing in mind that he is pre-K age, I was a little skeptical, but actually he really likes them. The math and science sections are still easy, but language arts, social studies and miscellany are all brand new to him.

Actually, it turns out brain quest have a huge website with downloadable resources and apps for the iphone/ipad too. It's only £2.99 so I've bought it and we'll be playing it later on today.

These sets are a great way to build encyclopedic knowledge, which is perfect for the developmental stage we are currently at.

***Update***

The app is AMAZING! It allows up to three users, so the kids can work at their own level each time they come back and not miss any stages/have to start again.

It's easy, multiple choice style means that even Lychee can play as I read the questions and she has to choose an answer. It's great for reading practice as I ask 'Which describes a girl? He or She?' and she has to look at the two answers to work out which one says 'she'.

Obviously Cosmo has zoomed through to level 24 in just half an hour, but he's enjoying it and building knowledge, so I'm really pleased. I also have no idea how many levels there are, but it hasn't shown any signs of being completed any time soon.

£2.99 well spent :0)

Drawing Lessons For Kids

I recently picked up a book called 'Drawing with Children: A Creative Teaching and Learning Method That Works for Adults Too' by Mona Brookes and it is fantastic! 

She gives examples of the differences in children's drawings with 20 minutes of tuition, an hour of tuition etc... and it's really hard to believe. In all honesty I thought the pictures might be a little exaggerated.

I was wrong. 

But let me take you back a little. Initially, despite my concerns that the pictures were probably 'enhanced' by adults, I really liked reading the first chapter on how to conduct a drawing lesson. Simple things like pointing out symptoms of visual fatigue helped me realise why cosmo can do twenty math sheets with 40 questions on, but struggles to complete one with 100 (the font is too small). 

This week I asked Lychee if she wanted to do her own lesson with mummy. We spent all of approximately three minutes with her completing a drawing exercise from the book. I was actually quite impressed with her ability to copy. I've never asked her to before, so she usually just scribbles. 

Here is what she produced (mine in black, hers in yellow).

Not bad for a two year old, right?

She then went on to do her first ever recognisable drawing. It's a picture of her cousin.

I'm not going to pretend I knew who it was, but it is definitely a face! 

More interesting, is that since then, with no prompting, she has started colouring inside the lines. So when we made Daddy this card for Father's day, she would usually just scribble over my writing and picture. She took great pains this time to keep inside the heart.

Not only that, but she was able to draw X marks for kisses under her name. 

Both my kids, after a few minutes of 'teaching' went on to spend hours and hours the next day drawing hundreds of pictures using the symbols from the exercises we had done the day before. Their enthusiasm for drawing this week has been incredible. 

If anyone is wondering whether or not to buy this book, I highly recommend it. 

Learning by Colouring

I write a lot about what I'm doing with Cosmo, and sometimes is can seem like Lychee is just along for the ride. That's only about 50% true. Half the time she really is just watching what her older brother is doing, but I'm okay with that - in fact she learns really well by watching him!

Other days I am intentional about what I'm doing with her, but the reality is I've already done it and blogged it once before with her brother, so it doesn't often make a post.

Today I decided to write about her though. Yesterday her brother was entertaining himself nicely with Reader Rabbit, and she asked me if we could do some colouring together.

Yes, together.

I didn't watch her and tell her she was doing a good job, I joined in and we coloured each page together, because she likes it better when we do a project together like that. 

I wanted to work on reading and following instructions, so we chose a book that tells you what to do. She's not free reading yet, but she is capable of having a guess at a word if she's given some clues, for example seeing the "L" at the beginning of the word threw her because she wanted it to say "truck" and she'd never heard "lorry". 

I read the instructions to her, deliberately pausing and asking her key words, for example "colour my body... What colour does this say?" running my fingers under the words. She only knows one colour that begins with "R" so she answers "red".

This method is great because you are setting her up to win and reinforcing the sight words. Where just showing a flash card with the word "red" on could have been any word, limiting her options to 'it must be a colour' encourages critical thinking, as well as reading.

Lysh is also into numbers right now, in a big way, so we counted things on the pages and practised writing their numbers next to them.

It was fun, and she loved showing them to Cosmo and telling him how hard we had worked on it. I love her team spirit. My son just wants to do everything by himself with, no help, so that he can say "i did it!" when he achieves something. My daughter really wants to work together on everything, and the doing is so much more important to her than the outcome. Every child really does have a totally different nature in built! 

Stable Day

Yesterday was stable day with our homeschool co-op. The children had an amazing time learning about how to care for horses, in fact Cosmo's favourite part of the day was mucking out the stables! They learned about feeding and grooming, caring for tack and they also got a riding lesson.

I was so proud of him, because he had been really worried about taking part, but despite initial nerves he did do it and really enjoyed himself.


I think this is also the longest time I have ever left him anywhere (10am-3pm) without an adult he knows well. It was obviously helpful that his cousins were in the class and he knew some other children too, but I was so pleased with the way the owners of the stable made an effort to make him feel comfortable too.

Lychee was insanely jealous (the stables only had insurance for children over four years old) and spent most of the day pretending to ride horses.

But before you feel too sorry for her, she did get to spend an afternoon playing in the woods with me and Cooper, and in the morning we took her to the Japanese Koi Company aka the free zoo. If you haven't been, and you live locally, you are missing out.

They have raccoon dogs, armadillos, spiders, snakes, bunnies, frogs, birds, all kinds of fish and turtles etc... it really is both fun and educational.


Here's the video:

Writing and Sibling Love

Yesterday Lychee wrote her first word!

It was on the chalkboard in the school room, and she chose to write her brothers name. After walking in and announcing that she was going to do it, she started with the second letter, but with a little encouragement she got the whole word.

I was so proud of her, but when asked if she wanted to try another word she threw down the chalk, snapped 'no' and ran out the room. We need to work on manners for sure!

Still, I love that she chose to write her brothers name and not her own. It's such a reflection of her darling little heart. She loves her big brother so much and 'brother' was the first recognisable word she said, long before 'mama' or 'dada'.

Sibling love. 

Lychee's growing up...

Today Lysh went to her first swimming lesson alone.

Without Cosmo, and without her two cousins.

She was so good, and although a little nervous, she tried really hard and did everything asked of her.

My baby's growing up!!

Growing in Compassion

We don't have a TV license, but we have always kept a television to watch movies on and use the Wii. Don't worry, it's totally legit. 

Initially we had a very small 15" TV which we kept up on a high shelf. I didn't want it to dominate the room and be a constant temptation to the children to ask for DVDs.

But then our TV broke, and being the frugal people that we are we got our next one off freecycle. It was quite a lot bigger, if I remember around 21", but it only lasted six months. The next freecycle offering we got so a whopping 44".

Yeah.

And it broke.

It lasted a good while, but finally a friend was selling his (huge) 72" flatscreen LCD TV, so we bought it from him for a great price.

Cosmos response: This is amazing!!! I can't wait until it breaks and we get a cinema!!

Wow.

The thing is, he had a really similar response to his pets. For his second birthday some friends bought him a pet fish, who we called Finley. Cosmo was devastated when Fin died (selfishly the same week Lychee was born!) but cheered up significantly when he got new fish - Ross and Franji. Interestingly, he didn't have the same response when Franji died within a week of getting home. In fact, his response was positive joy, because 'Now I get to go to the garden centre again and choose another fish!!'

Over the coming series of fish it became apparent that he did not have any attachment issues to a particular animal, he just liked being in charge of feeding it and checking on it regularly.

However, his current fish (Eugenie) killed Lychee's fish (Greg) yesterday. He'd been hassling him for as long as they'd shared a tank and poor Greg spent most of his time hiding in a toy volcano. When I told Cosmo that Greg had died, he had the predictable response of 'Will I get to choose Lychee's new fish? '

However, twenty-four hours on and it seems he's been considering it more than I'd given him credit for. Today he's been concerned that Eugenie was bullying Greg because 'I used to kiss Eugenie through the glass every morning and I started kissing Greg too. Maybe Eugenie was jealous and that's why he killed Greg. If we get another fish I'll try not to love it as much as Eugenie'.

Obviously I assured him that some fish are just bullies and nothing he could have done would have increased Greg's odds of survival, but the boy was welling up.

It seems he does care about his pet's after all.

Orchard Toys

We were lucky enough to receive some lovely Orchard Toys for Christmas from a relative, and it really has been one of the best presents they received.

Having games that are simple enough for the whole family, or even just the two children, to play together has been so much fun. We have put together a games cupboard over the years, and whilst its always been in reach, we've told the children that they cannot play games without adult supervision because of small parts that might get lost.

Not so with orchard toys. In fact the game pieces are chunky and vibrant enough for a two year old to tidy up by herself and be confident that she has got every piece.

The easiest game, that the children play happily together without adult intervention, is 'Farmer's Lotto'. Everyone takes a card, then you take turns to turn over a card and see if it matches your card. The first person to fill their card wins. The catch is that you have to say the name of the animal and make the sound it makes if you want to keep the card.

Farmer's Lotto

Simple enough for a small child to play, but really helpful for our littlest in building confidence to speak (she has a mild speech delay).

The second game is called 'slug in a jug' and is slightly more difficult, but is doing wonders for her sight word recognition and for her brothers ability to create sentences.

It's basically pairs, but instead of matching, you have to find a rhyme! Each card has a picture on it, but also the word printed in bold so that whilst the child gets a big hint from the picture, they are still seeing the word.

Phonemes are colour coded so that children can easily see that "ea" in "pea" rhymes with "ey" in "key" or that "bowl", "mole" and "goal" all rhyme, despite their different spellings.

Slug in a Jug

For our youngest, she simply has to say the words and recognise whether they rhyme. For our son, and any adults playing, you have to say a sentence including the two words - hence the name "slug in a jug".

They're great games, and honestly slug I'm a jug would be easily replicated with homemade flash cards.

The official Orchard Toys cards are really nicely made though, and I highly recommend them.

Conversations With a Two Year Old

It's true that Lychee's speech is difficult to understand unless you know her. 'Mas-mas Eee' (Christmas tree) is a case in point. That hasn't concerned me too much, because I'm pleased that she is attempting to speak (previously she has blankly stared at you refusing to repeat anything!) and just in time too because we have an appointment with a speech and language therapist next week!

What I'm excited about is that we had probably our first conversation that didn't just involve one question with a 'yes/no' type answer today. It was a proper discussion with consequences.

Okay, I'll admit, it's not how you hope your first conversation will go, but I was still proud of her. This is kind of how parenting seems to work with my littlest one. I'm so excited to tell people she has put words together into a sentence, then I have to admit that the sentence was 'Mama - Snot on fingers!' Or when she first started copying recognisable sounds and they were the Birdo noise from Mario Kart, or 'Waluigi! Imma gonna win!' (don't judge - it's not her fault she has grown up with an older brother).

photo credit

She was looking exhausted but didn't want to nap (obviously, because over tired children never do) and so I decided to just change her diaper and see if she'd cuddle up for a quiet story. Unfortunately, she read changing diaper as 'time for bed' and started screaming and kicking trying to get away from me. Whilst wrestling her legs with one hand and wipes with the other she started to scream 'Let go of me mama! Let go of me!' (okay, you might not have heard that clearly, but I knew what she was saying).

I responded with 'I can't sweetheart because you will run away and you won't let me put your fresh nappy on'.

'I will Mama! I will! Let go of me, I will!' (sobbing through tears).

It was one of those magical moments when you realize that your child is now old enough to reason with you and you can make discipline more than just taking something away. I was so happy, despite the fact that she was having an outrageous tantrum.

Unfortunately she has also learned how to lie, so the minute I let go she scrambled to get away again, and I had to wrestle her like an octopus back into some kind of position that would allow me to get a diaper on.

Terrible Two's...

Exercise for Brain Power

Check it out! My baby can ride a bike!!

One of the great things about home education is being able to spend plenty of time doing stuff away from a desk. The kids get way more exercise because we spend a large portion of the day walking to and from shops, the library, the park - not to mention swimming and active play at those places.

I believe at this age school is very active too, with lots of playing and discovering in the classroom, and not too much sitting at desks, but I really value the fact that as my children get older, their activity levels don't have to drop. They won't lose afternoon recess, or be confined to 1.5 hours of sports timetabled in a week (that's what we had when I was at school).

Before you think I'm sports mad (I'm not - ask anyone. I managed to escape PE since 4th form by volunteering for  extra music lessons) there is a good reason I encourage my children to get plenty of exercise - it increases brain power and productivity.

This week I was sent this great infographic by a woman named Alison from Online Courses, which puts it so much more succinctly than I ever could.

http://www.onlinecollegecourses.com/

If you want to see more from Online Courses you can click on the link below the picture. They are a great resource for further education and even have links to lots of free programs, such as the open courses at Yale, which are high quality educational materials made available through download. 

Cosmo general update

Since we've been doing the GAPS diet we've seen massive improvements in Cosmo's behavior, temperament and ability to express emotion. It's sometimes a little heartbreaking, 'I will feel very lonely and sad if I play by myself', but not manipulative - he is just getting genuinely better at expressing what he is feeling, labelling emotions and telling us about them before they explode into rage. 

Last week we were on holiday up in Cumbria, and some friends had some lego that they got out for him to play with. Lego a few months back was a massive source of frustration for him. He just could not get the parts to click together and very quickly ended up in tears. 

However, thanks to improvements in his fine motor skill he was happily making all kinds of models, including police cars carrying flags - for the Olympic parade apparently (he went with his daddy to watch a few events and loved it. In fact we ended up hosting our own re-enactment of the medals ceremony several times back home).

I was super impressed with the development in his fine motor, but I hadn't realised the extent of it until we got home. My husband decided to work on an Octonauts magazine with him, and although he was mostly using stickers, he coloured in a picture of a 'crafty cuttlefish' so neatly that I nearly accused his daddy of doing it for him! Six months ago he couldn't hold a pen properly, now he writes, colours in the lines and colour specific details (like each leg a different colour - because he knows that cuttelfish can change colours to camouflage).

This may not sound like much to those of you with children who have been scribbling on everything since before they could talk, but for us it's a huge breakthrough; I'm just so excited for him. 

Number surprise

Due to speech delays (which weren't actually delays if I talk to other parents, but seemed very delayed to someone who parented Cosmo) it's been difficult to tell just how much Lychee actually understands. At 22 months we know she has been able to sound out her alphabet and a few words for a while (apart from saying 'snake' instead of 'ssss' for 'S') but today she completely astounded me.

I was sitting with Cosmo, working through some of the free section on Clever Dragons, when he decided it was too hard and he wanted to do the kindergarten area. I allowed it - he was very tired and it usually doesn't help to frustrate him - but to my surprise Lychee started shouting out the numbers before he'd had a chance to move the mouse to click on them!

We were a little late for a children's group, so I waited until we got there, then grabbed a crayon and some paper to start drawing numbers for her. Turns out she can recognise and say all of them except seven and one (seven is 'shhhh' and one just gets me the evil eye). She's also enjoying me writing words and asking her to point to which one corresponds to the toy she is holding (e.g. she was holding an elephant so I wrote down 'pig elephant' and asked her to touch the word for ^point at elephant^). She still can't say elephant, but she knows what one looks like and can read it.

I think she might be coming up to fast mapping stage, so I need to get the pen and paper ready.

Bubble hunting

I love that pretty much anything counts as educational when you home school. Today we are mostly working hand eye co-ordination by bubble hunting.

Cosmo had a question he wanted answered yesterday; what happens if you shoot a bubble with your water gun? Does it get bigger, become lots of small bubbles, or disappear?

Obviously I wanted to conduct a scientific experiment (plus it was sunny and sounded like fun) so we invented bubble hunting.

I make bubbles, Cosmo shoots them.

Actually it's surprising how quickly his accuracy improved. He can now hit a bubble from a fair distance.

Lychee is chasing them down too, although she is just smacking them with her gun.

Mostly she is just playing on the slide though.

JET PACK!

As I've posted before, we LOVE Readeez.

Well Lychee may not be reading fluently yet, but she is definitely making progress, and today, thanks to Readeez, she sang her first recognisable song without just joining in 'laa-ing' over what someone else was singing. 

The chosen song was... a Readee!! One of our absolute favourites that Cosmo has been singing for weeks. I was just walking past the school room when I heard as clear as a bell the bridge from JET PACK.  

'I got my J E T P A C K (not very clear, but recognisable tune, followed by  a perfect 'With me, with me, with me'. 

So proud.

Here's the song if you want to here it:

Child led learning

At some point, I suppose, I'm going to have to start teaching my children something that is dictated by a syllabus, rather than their whims, if they are ever going to pass exams.

That said, my children are very small, and it's a long way off, so I might just bury my head in the sand a little longer and allow them to lead the educational way.

It's easy enough to do when you have a four year old who loves to read by himself, enjoys problem solving games and wants you to explain how a volcano works. It's harder to do when you have a willful 18 month old who is determined to use a potty.

Cosmo wasn't potty trained until he was nearly four, but one day he just decided he was ready, we had no accidents and that was that. He never looked back. The problem is, Lychee saw this and now thinks she'd like to have a go to. In fact she has been keen to have a go since february, but I made her wait until half term. I felt like having my husband home (he's a teacher) for three and a bit weeks would give me time to stay at home and get her trained, whilst we took turns to go out for things like groceries.

The theory was good, the problem is that despite wanting to use a potty, Lychee isn't really verbal enough to tell us when she wants to use a potty. The result is that whilst we are at home, with no pants on, she will wander around occasionally pottering over to use the potty, give herself a clap, then get on with her day. All well and good, but we can't leave the house.

Once she puts pants on, she can't get them off and can't find a way to communicate to us that she wants them off. The result is usually that she will sit on the potty to wet her pants, but at a friends house (despite the potty being in the middle of the room) she felt like it was okay to sit down and pee anywhere - thankfully with five children of their own, they were very understanding friends!

In situations like this I want to give up. It's stupid. She can't even talk or pull her pants down. She is too young to potty train. But she really wants to.

That's when I have to remember 'baby steps'.

When I wanted to organise my life I took on FLYlady's mantra of 'baby steps', meaning that bit by bit I would get organised, without beating myself up over what isn't done, but just regularly introducing new habits until everything was done.

Instead of being frustrated that I have to put Lychee back in a nappy to go to the shops, I should be grateful that we now use about 70% less diapers than we used to (that's a huge financial saving right there), and that she is learning to use the potty and preferring that to feeling wet. It's a small step towards potty training, that may still be several months away, but we are closer than we were.

She might not be trained over night, and I'm sure we'll have more accidents than we did with Cosmo, but she'll definitely be trained earlier (I've got two more years to make that target) which will in the end save us a lot of money, but more importantly it isn't a battle. This isn't something I have to fight her on. She wants to do it.

In fact, I even caught her trying to empty the potty herself today. She spilled it on the tiles (thank goodness not the carpet!) and by the time I went to get a nappy to clean it with she was already there with a tea towel trying to pat it dry.

They grow up so fast!

Lychee Update

We talk so much about her big brother on here and Lychee tends to largely get ignored. This is for the most part because I feel like a lot of the posts would be very repetitive if I told you what we did with One child and then repeated it when the next one came along!

However, with regards to reading the children have learnt VERY differently. We tried the flashcard and YBCR system that worked so well with Cosmo, but had very little results with Lychee. She just wasn't interested. However she loves Starfall.com and we noticed that unlike her brother, who learnt using the whole word system, she was able to name individual letters by their sound. 

With this in mind we started using the hooked on phonics videos with her a little while back. Today she started sounding out words that she had never seen before by herself for the first time. She still pronounces each letter separately ('T-H-I-S' instead of 'Th-Is) and annunciates VERY clearly (it takes a long time to read when you pronounce each letter as a syllable) but it is a great leap forward developmentally and a step in the right direction decoding sounds ready for reading. 

I'm absolutely thrilled. If you want to see the video she was working on, it's here.