Getting into my routine

Okay, well today was much better!

The past few days (weeks) have been hectic as I’ve been struggling to get back into sync with a new baby.

Friday while my 5 year old daughter was at homeschool co-op , I was able to really tune in to Zoe’s needs and follow her patterns more closely. I think I’ve gotten a hang of what she needs and when. Her late afternoon/evening schedule is a bit strange (what newborn’s isn’t?) She sleeps through the night okay and has a regular pattern early morning…but at night she gets off schedule and cries a lot.

She seems to get cranky while I nurse A LOT and I’ve been trying to narrow it down to reasons like …could she be allergic to something I’m eating? So I’ve cut out dairy products. Or… could it be that she’s not latching on correctly? I know that in the beginning she didn’t latch on well, but things have gotten better since Week 1…so maybe that’s not it. Or maybe my letdown is too fast? Too slow? Gosh…there’s too much to figure out. So I’ve just left it alone and figured it’s probably just a growth spurt.

Anyways, that night when my daughter came home we took some more pictures. We figured they’d make great Christmas cards.

History and math fun

Last week we did a brief history/geography lesson on the Makings of America. Here’s Nyomi with the globe as she learns to locate the United States on a globe and atlas:

We learned about the American flag and its significance (our freedom from Great Britain and the waving of the flag on the battleground). We also discussed our National Anthem and sung it a bit (and played it on the piano) as part of our music.

The weekend passed by rather quickly and I’m getting ready for the next telechat series at Christian Ladies Connect, so I’ve spent some time preparing for that. Meanwhile, I’ve been kind of harried about Nyomi’s science lessons for the month.

I’ve got some objectives in place for her this year for science and I want to cover a segment of these before the end of September– so I’m doing some spur of the moment search for cool projects to integrate into our objectives and we’ll be set. Math-U-See program is EXCELLENT! We’ve gone through 12 lessons (although they’re set to be paced one lesson per week and we’ve only been in school for 3 weeks) but she loves the program and I do too. Which says ALOT for this particular program since I’m sooo picky. Currently she’s on the concepts of adding numbers together using manipulatives and I’m seeing where she’s able to recognize a set of 3 1’s within the a “6″ block. She will split the block mentally in half and say “I see 3 units on this side and 3 units on the other side, so this is a 6 block”. Then we take the 6 block and, say, another 3 block and “smoosh” them together to make “6 + 3 = 9″ or “6 + 3 is the same length as 9″. The program is quite comprehensive I think…with the exception of money (which we’ll work on with time- recognizing pennies, dimes, nickles, and quarters and assigning value to them). I’ve been meaning to find a good pretend cash register for those upcoming lessons/games.

Well I guess that’s all for now… We’ll need to do a new podcast episode soon.

Child Development Resources

If you're a parent, an educator, or work with children in some way, it's good to have some key information about the development of children and issues that affect them.

Below are some great resources about child development. Although there are many more great tools out there, these are just a start.

(I haven't reviewed each of these sites in depth, so discover them for yourself and determine which are your most viable tools):

• Child Development Institute
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Society for Research in Child Development
• PBS Parents
• Medline Plus
• Education.com