You learn something everyday....

I know now (after 33 years) that you really do learn something new everyday. But I didn't recognize just how much kids learn on a daily basis until I had a couple of my own.

The new questions I get from Cade and the new orders I receive from Breyden boggle my VERY vanilla thinking. How in the world do they come up with this crap? Most of the time I am left searching the internet for answers for Cade AND having to walk out of the room laughing because of something Miss Breyden instructs me to do.

Now that its just the three of us on nightly basis, I am in a zone defense (my heart goes out to my close friend Beth Norwood who has triplets - so even with a husband around to help, I can't imagine). This makes the new found "homework" time in between dinner and Dora the Explorer an interesting 30 minutes at our house. Let's be clear, I know that Cade looks and acts like he is six years old....but Breyden THINKS she is six and so, there isn't one thing that Cade does that she doesn't want to try. Since I have entered this "zone defense life" I mentioned above, my creativity on how to be a fun and effective mom has dwindled a bit. I had to put in a call to the best Mom I know to see how I should juggle helping Cade with his letters while Breyden fights to stay in my lap. My genius Mother reminded me that I need to use Breyden's desire to be like Cade so now, Breyden has homework too. And TA-DA....she LOVES it.

The homework last night instructed Cade to come up with 2 words that use the "short e" sound (which BTW I had to look up on the internet if that meant "pen" or "bee" b/c I can't tell you the last time someone said "short e" to me). He then needed to sound out the word, write it on the orange flashcard, and draw a picture of the word on the back. Every night before last, we've been asked to use the regular white kindergarten writing paper - but last night we used the orange cards. Well Breyden looked at what Cade was writing on and knew he was getting to do something that she wasn't. So she looked at me and said "Mama, I want the orange paper". ORANGE PAPER? I didn't know that she knew what the color orange was! Honestly, all she says to me is pink, brown or white and those brief conversations about color happen because we're arguing about her shoes (go figure).


But the real freak out that I had last night was when I heard Breyden count to 7 while she was jumping on the couch preparing to do a dive like the people on the TV. She did this twice so it was no fluke. In the words of Harry Carey - Holy Cow!

....so what I learned yesterday is that private pre-school tuition at Goddard is worth every penny!

what we do before homework time starts....