An Update

Because it's been way too long since I wrote a real blog post for the rundown. Let's begin.

Gavin and Vivian are officially 5 and a half years old (since November 9th). They are both finally adjusting to kindergarten and seem to like it a lot. In case you didn't know, prior to September, the twins did not go to preschool full-time (they got home everyday at 1pm). So the main adjustment that they had was being away from home ALL DAY LONG. They get on the bus at 7:50am and they don't get off the bus each afternoon until 4:20-4:30pm. It's a long day. They would complain a lot in the beginning of the school year about how long the day was and about how difficult it was to concentrate all day and about how tired they were. They still complain about that, but not as frequently.

One of the things that has been both stressful and hilarious is their daily behavior charts. Each day, they receive a color for their behavior. They start everyday on green, can go up one color to silver (for being super good), and they can go down several colors: blue ("making poor choices"), yellow ("continuing to make poor choices"), orange (note is sent home), and finally red (when they get sent to the office). For the first several weeks of the semester, Vivian came home with all green and silver and Gavin came home with a rainbow of colors. He never came home with red, but yellow, orange, and blue were all frequent colors on his behavior chart. Notes from Gavin's teacher accompanied his behavior chart several times a week. It was a mess. The good news is that after about 4 weeks of rainbow colors, Gavin's behavior chart has changed to consistent green and silver. He hasn't even had a blue report since October.

In the beginning of November, I went to parent-teacher conferences for both twins. Vivian's conference was first. I walked in, sat down, and the teacher said, "Well, I don't really have much for Vivian. She listens, she's in the top reading group, she gets along with her friends, and she's right on track. Do you have any questions for me?" We spent the rest of our 15 minutes talking about Vivian's little quirks, her attitude, things that she loves and things that she hates, and her friends. Gavin's meeting was next; which was a completely different interaction. I actually started the meeting with, "Don't worry about sugar-coating anything. I'm not that mom. My husband and I know our son can be challenging and we want to work with you to help him succeed in school. If you sugar-coat it, I'll won't know how to really help him." I think she was shocked. Oh well. The rest of our conversation centered around Gavin's lack of self-control, improvement in his writing, math abilities (he can add single digit numbers in his head without using fingers in seconds and he can add two digit numbers with his fingers), problems with listening, and incredible memory. Overall, the message was that Gavin was a bit of a mess in the beginning , but has improved a great deal over the first two months.

In other news, Paxton is officially 2 and a half years old (as of November 21st). And boy, he is also officially in his terrible twos. He is moody, demanding, and particular. He wants what he wants and he knows how to communicate it. His vocabulary is soaring and multiplying everyday. He speaks in full, complete sentences and paragraphs, asks "Why" consistently, and will stand up for himself when his siblings are "mean" (i.e. don't give him what he wants or takes something from him). But, he's not always a crabby patty. In fact, he's still the snuggliest, sweetest, most caring of our three kiddos. He is concerned when Gavin or Vivian get hurt or get put in time-out and he loves to cuddle on the couch while watching Caillou. He likes setting the table and passing out snacks to the twins. He helps with the laundry and he wants to help with everything else (even if we don't want him to). He is also quite aware of what's happening to our family this summer; asking me when the baby is going to come and talking to my belly saying, "Hi baby! I love you! When you come out?!" We don't think he's going to like it when my attention is taken away from him, but we also think he'll just bond with the twins more.

Okay, sot here's the update. I'll write another post soon...