Schedules...and School

Before Devin was born I admit one of my biggest concerns was how to deal with two different schedules and needs. Elizabeth has always thrived on having a consistent routine, and I knew I wanted Devin to have one as well. You see I have Adult ADD and so my best option for keeping things together is simple consistent routines...and as luck would have it children generally thrive just as well with them. Before Devin was born even with all my medical issues I had a very solid schedule with Elizabeth and I just wasn't sure how Devin was going to fit into it, and for the first couple months after he was born it was just fly by the seat your pants and hold on! But as he got older and ready to set a routine of his own I am just amazed at how well the two routines meshed into a nice fluid day! Here's how our day typically goes: The 3 of us wake up, I take Devin into the kids room(he still wakes around 6am to eat, so he's still in our room) Elizabeth goes potty puts her glasses on and brushes her teeth while I get the kids clothes out, then Elizabeth dresses herself(with occasional help from me) while I change Devin. Then we head downstairs for breakfast, I get Liz's then mine then Dev's bottle. Then Liz and I do music/singing time, we sing a few songs together then I put some music on that she sings and dances to and just plays. I move Dev to tummy time while Liz is doing her thing. Next is story time I read to both the kids, then put Devin down for his late morning nap and Liz and I go outside for about an hour, then Liz and I have lunch while she watches an educational show(Word World, Sesame Street, Super why ect) Then she picks a "full length" movie usually a Disney(or type) movie and has rest time in her room. Sometimes she falls asleep for a bit sometimes she looks at books or plays or just watches the movie(on a portable DVD player set on the changing table). Meanwhile Devin eats then plays. After the movie is over or Liz wakes up and comes downstairs and has snack time, while I feed Devin baby food then I take him up for his afternoon nap. Liz and I then do flashcards, then workbooks, and then her favorite time of the day ART! After art we go outside again for as long as she wants, it varies everyday, after she's done playing outside she just plays with her toys downstairs, I usually encourage pretend play by asking her to cook me something, or fix my boo boo, or teach me something ect. Devin comes down when he awakes from his nap and plays. Then it's dinner, a little more play with daddy, Devin takes a catnap around 8 then bath and bed! As I said I'm amazed at how well things have seemingly just fallen perfectly into place!

The past couple days I've been doing a kind of assessment on where Elizabeth is at "academically" as her daily learning has been speratic and few and far between since Devin was born then summer came and now with it coming to an end I've been getting Elizabeth ready to dive back into mommy's preschool as I like to call it. So I've just been reviewing some things and then comparing it to my notes of where she was at the end of April...and I don't really like what I'm seeing. At the end of April she could Identify all but like 3 or 4 of her letters and most of the sounds, now she only knows 8 or 9 letters and sounds. Before, she could identify numbers up to 12 now it's hit and miss with numbers. Before, she knew all the "normal" shapes(circle, square, triangle, rectangle, oval, star) and she knew hexagon, octagon, and crescent. Now she's back to just knowing the normal ones. She still knows lots of colors but seems to struggle more with some of them. :( On the up side her writing skills have greatly improved as she can write many of the letters all by herself! Her reasoning skills are MUCH better! And she can count to 20 without skipping any numbers(if she's in the mood to indulge) and is working at getting to 30! So plenty of positives as well, I was just so sad to see how much she'd forgotten in 6 months I really need to get her back on track, luckily most of it seems to be coming back fairly easily, as long as we work on it a little bit everyday. She's always asking to go to school and I keep telling her she needs to know and be able to do these things before she can go to big girl school. Our pediatrician has talked to me many times about putting her in a private or charter or "gifted" school as she been intellectually ahead since she was about 15 months old and only seems to get further ahead as she gets older. We however can't afford a "special" school so our pediatrician has said at the very least she HAS to start Kindergarten early or skip it all together. I don't want her skipping it all together as I know she has things socially to learn in kindergarten, so then her dr suggested she start kindergarten next year but public schools won't allow barely four year olds. But she can start a couple weeks before she's five with a letter from her pediatrician. I know at Liz's 3 year check up(which is coming up in a month) her dr is going to want to discuss this so I've been brushing up on my game plan which is Liz going to a good public kindergarten in two years. And if I'm going to do that to her I want her as ready as the kids who are going to be up to over a year older than her. The thing is I've been teaching her from my four year olds' curriculum from Skool Days(where I worked as a preschool teacher) since she was just over two, and she's been doing a lot of it! She'll be three in three weeks and she's almost completed everything in that curriculum. Ya she could definitely polish certain things up, which is what I'm planning on working on doing this year and possibly slowly moving on to the the five years olds' pre-k curriculum I have a little bit of also from Skool Days, after that though I really think I'm going to have to put her in a preschool for further instruction...that and I want her to have experience with a classroom type setting before kindergarten, and building up her social skills wouldn't hurt either! I love that Elizabeth is so smart, but sometimes I feel pressure to keep her learning up to a "higher level". Sometimes when I'm talking to her or doing a lesson with her I literally forget I'm with a 35 month old and I push too hard because it seems like I'm working with a 5 or 6 year old not a almost 3 year old. I want to give her hungry mind all it desires without burning it out and that's a very delicate balance when it comes to Elizabeth. But I'm doing my best.