Samantha's first blog

pamelamyers | February 25, 2015

I haven’t said much about how Sam has been doing in school since the beginning of the year, but she is doing great! The beginning of this year was a little tough. Even though she loves school, it was difficult for her this year having to make all new friends again. Sam is so introverted that it makes reaching out to other kids a scary experience for her. She does have her friends, Ashlee and Ava, and after a while, she finally started wanting to stay to run around after school in the little courtyard like she used to last year. I was so glad she wanted to do that. She even is making friends with some of the boys in her class which is shocking. Last year she had no use for the boys, and aside from Franny and Michael, I don’t think she even could have told me any of their names. This year, she knows all her friends names and talks quite frequently about the boys she sits with at her table and the boys who sit next to her in circle. She knows what they like and don’t like (if I hear about Nicholas and his love of dinosaurs one more time…yikes) and even made a birthday card for one of the boys who sits next to her in circle that we mailed to his house. She was invited to Ashlee’s birthday party this year and was so excited to go. All the girls in her class were there and they were so excited to see each other. It is so sweet.

She is really learning her letters and her numbers and has even started working on “sight words” which is a foreign concept to me. We didn’t learn to read that way when I was a kid, not that I recall, but it seems all kids start out this way in preschool and kindergarten, learning words that they don’t even sound out, but just “know” on sight. Words like and, the, me, for, etc. Whatever works I guess. Sam didn’t seem too interested in the concept at first, but now she definitely is into it. She is always finding sight words everywhere we look, in her books, on tv, printed on all kinds of signs and packages.  She has also started sounding out words like cat  and cow and other easy three letter words. She can spell a few too, like mom, dad, and her favorite and first real word she learned to spell — stop.

We had her parent teacher conference and her teacher said she was doing very well, is coming out of her shell, but sometimes seems a little reluctant to work on her papers in class. Her teacher said she knows that Sam knows the concepts, she just has to be pushed to either do her papers, or to do them with thought, and to not rush through them and thus make mistakes. I was concerned about this at first, but after talking to her, realized it is not that she doesn’t know the things she needs to know but rather, that she is bored with papers. Mark realized early on (and I much later) that Sam is definitely a hands on kind of learner. She does better with examples, with “doing” rather that being shown. Writing things on worksheets is not necessarily the way for her to learn concepts. So…I am trying to find other ways to help her grasp things and it seems to be working. Mark always says the best way to teach Sam something is to not let her realize you are trying to teach her, and he is right.

At any rate, school will be over before you know it and Sam will be off to kindergarten. She is all registered as of this week!

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pamelamyers | February 21, 2015

It snowed AGAIN. I can’t take it anymore! This was a pretty big one too, and it was snowing like crazy! At least it was a Saturday so we didn’t have to contend with school or work or anything. That being the case, Mark took Sam down the street to the sledding hill. I so dislike the snow, but I didn’t want to miss Sam sledding again since seeing her joy is the absolute ONLY good part of the snow, so I followed a few minutes later. It was cold as could be so Sam was covered from head to toe, even wearing Mark’s balaclava she had on the other day for her Ninja picture.

Man, she has done it so many times, and I still can’t get over the sight of my tiny little girl going down this gigantic hill all by herself but she has absolutely no fear. [Mark – And if you can’t tell from the photos, it was snowing *hard* and was really cold like 17 degrees. But we were one of the first sledders on the hill :).]

And the big trek back up. Poor kid. She looks like she is at the North Pole!

It is quite the trek up the hill. She asks us to go down with her all the time and I think it’s less because she wants company…

…and more because she runs off once you hit the bottom and you have to drag the sled back up! Hey! Wait up! Aren’t you the one with all the energy?

It is fun going down with her though. The whole way down with her she is just squealing with glee. On our first run, she said to me, with such excitement, “Isn’t this fun, Mom?” Yup. It is.

After a while, she just wanted to play at the bottom near the giant boulder. The “big rock” as she calls it. My little snow bunny. 🙂

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pamelamyers | February 14, 2015

Today is Valentine’s Day, or otherwise known as, The Day Mom Waited In Line At Build-A-Bear For Two Hours To Get Elsa Bear Day.  What a huge mistake. As you know, Sam has been working on staying in her own bed and not visiting ours. We made her a chart with the oh-so-coveted Elsa Bear at the bottom. It was her prize for making it through the chart with little to no sad faces (meaning she wound up in our bed). Sam surprised even me and managed to get through the entire chart with only 2 sad faces! We were so proud of her. She definitely earned her prize. We had planned on going to the King of Prussia Mall today and thought, well, it’s one day early, but we are here, she earned it, let’s just get the bear.

Who would have thought, Build-A-Bear would be such a popular place for Valentine’s Day gifts? Well. It is. There was a LINE to get in. A LINE. I am such a sap. But I am a good mom. I waited in line. And to her credit, Sam waited with me and didn’t complain, even once, except to comment a few times that she wished the line would move faster. At the end, she got her Elsa Bear and was the happiest kid in town! There is one thing I can say, charts work for Sam. She totally gets the concept and as long as there is a reward at the end of it. She potty trained quickly using a chart (and strangely, a Build-A-Bear Hello Kitty as her reward – that store is going to bankrupt me) and now the bedtime thing worked. I’ll have to remember that for whatever the next thing is, but please, no Build-A-Bear reward at the end!

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pamelamyers | February 13, 2015

Sam was super excited about Valentine’s Day, just like she is every year. We bought cards for her classmates and she had tons of surprises for Mark and I. Doing her cards this year was so much easier than last year! She is so good at writing her name now it was no big deal at all. Last year, she signed her name to each card, but I wrote her friends’ names since she could barely get through her own! This year, I offered to write her friends’ names and she quickly shot down that idea because, “They are my friends, Mommy, and the cards are from me!” Well. There you go. We had Frozen cards for the girls and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cards for the boys. She carefully picked each one for each student. She even wanted to make cards for her teachers, Mrs. Dunbar and Mrs. Hayes. Sam didn’t think it would be right to have them excluded. She is such a thoughtful little girl. It is one of the things I love most about her. Here are the cards she made. She even drew pictures on each one of her giving a valentine to her teacher. I did write the teachers’ names on the cards so it would be easier for Sam to figure out which card was for which teacher. She can’t really spell their names but she knows what letter their last names start with from the sound, so I made sure she knew to look at the letters.

Sam got all decked out in her Valentine’s Day finest. She was ready for her party at school! Best looking girl in her class, and certainly the most Valentiney!

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pamelamyers | February 13, 2015

Sam can really surprise me sometimes. Last night, she actually stayed in her own bed (not even in her sleeping bag on our floor) until after 5:00 a.m. She then climbed into our bed (I showed her on a digital clock that until the first number is a “5”, she can’t come into our bed) and with all her wiggling kind of kept me up at that point, but she left on her own around 6:30.  I heard lots of noise downstairs (but not enough to concern me) and she came back into our room a little after 7:00 holding a can of Zephyr’s food. She said, “Can you open this so Zephyr stops going meow meow meow?” I popped the top and handed it back to her and she went off downstairs. I got up a few minutes later and after brushing my teeth and such headed for the stairs. Sam was on her way up and she wouldn’t let me go downstairs. I finally did go down and found that not only had Sam fed Zephyr, but she also changed both water bowls, emptied her litter box, chucked the bag of litterbox waste outside (we do that when it is more than urine), cleaned up all her Legos, and straightened her doll house (she knows I can’t stand it when the dollhouse looks like a hurricane hit). I was so proud of my big girl for doing so many things to make my morning easier. She acted like it was no big deal, which cracks me up. Sam acted all nonchalant, like she does it all the time. Her only real comment was that she doesn’t like emptying the litter because it’s too hard.  Why is it that kids are so willing to do things when it’s their idea, and not yours? If only we could somehow manipulate this to our benefit, how easy life would be….

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