In my last post, we were getting ready to start school as summer came to an end. Here's the quick update: We moved! And we're homeschooling.
We're now living in a townhouse, which was an adjustment for us-- no yard for the kids to play in, weird noises, out of control neighborhood kids, not being able to just dump in the grass any leftover coffee that was sitting in the car all day when you get home from work.. but we do have some pretty cute neighbors. Bally's taken with these two. He calls them both "C kuh-kuh-CAT!"
We also have access to a pretty cool playground (which none of the other neighborhood children use, because they're all crazy heathen children and prefer to play in the street, running circles around any vehicles trying to pull in and out.) Doesn't quite make up for our own yard, but Bally has enjoyed learning to do some stuff he never got to do before, like learning to climb "scary, shaky rope ladders" (made of chain)..We still love robots, block tower robots, robot costumes, the alphabet, and video games about astronomy.
Since moving, both Bally and his sister have made a lot of progress and have grown up a bit! He has a lot of speech now and can carry on very simple back-and-forth conversations, though most of it isn't yet genuine conversation. We might get lucky and he'll tell us that he's hungry, and wants to eat pierogies. He also might tell us that he's Chinese, and likes to eat Santa Clause. But either way, he seems to understand how conversation works, and he's shown us that he has a huuge vocabulary. He's pretty proud of his words, I think, since he's upped his typical "A is for Apple, B is for Ball, etc" alphabet chant to 2 words apiece, like "A is for Apple AND Ant!"
I'm not sure I ever mentioned the results from his ophthalmology visit. He can see just fine. This didn't come as a surprise to us, as his favorite past time is memorizing and reproducing things he's seen, even for a split second.This drawing he did of the Disney Junior logo they display in commercials, where there are fireworks behind the word Junior.. which is what his dots represent. And he's taken with his sister's Leapster Explorer, where he plays some Wall-E game that involves lining up the planets according to their distance from the sun.
And just to give a little spotlight to Bally's sister, I'll mention that homeschooling is going wonderfully! Her confidence is improving; we just needed to find the right motivating factors for her, and her learning style too. She's all about computers, and figuring out how to create a computer based curriculum was all we needed to do. So as far as her studies go, when we started in October, she knew only the letter O by sight. Now she knows all her letters, and what they sound like. And as far as her extracurricular computer use.. well, not only does she know the ins and outs of playing The Sims 3, but she knows how to put in and manipulate the cheat codes so that her Sims never have to work, can have parties every day, and can recolor everything they own to PINK. And have faerie wings. So we're doing pretty good.
We're in a new county now, so hopefully I'll have an update shortly, after I receive word on where to begin with placing Bally in a preschool program. We have to start from square one, and I haven't been able get anywhere with it yet. Maybe after the first of the year.
Either way, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
