Phew. I am pretty exhausted today. We were in and out of the car all day, constantly moving, other than a 45 minute time period when Layla was in preschool, and I even pawned off one of my chores on Renee! Days like this are simply draining for me. If I'm busy around the house all day that's one thing, but when I feel like I've spent SO much of my day in the car, I hate it. So here I am, in bed, feet up, while Jonas takes over the spaghetti prep for the kids downstairs. My first moment of peace all day. Aaaaaaaaah. :) Lovely.
I forget if I mentioned Layla's vision in my last update about her (and I'm too lazy to go and check right now...). The only other thing Jonas remembered about her 4 Year Well Child checkup, other than her 80th% for weight shocker, was that her vision is a little off. Not too horrible yet, for sure, but she's on her way down. Already. :( Gosh I feel sorry for her. My vision is bad, and Jonas has horrid vision, so her genetic propensity to near-blindness is crazy high, that's for sure.
I remember getting my glasses as a kid--maybe 6th grade? 5th?--and being SHOCKED. THAT was how people saw all the time? It was amazing to see so clearly--everything!! But, then the reality of wearing glasses sets in. As soon as I could, in high school, I moved to contacts and never went back...that is until I had kids. THEN how I felt about my appearance (the main reason I wore contacts, other than not liking the feel of having something on my face all day long...) took a BIG backseat to everything else in life demanding my attention. But, at least as an adult I can buy new frames every few years, try to make myself look a little trendy even if I am wearing glasses, find frames that look good with my face shape and hair cut/color, etc.
Poor kids. Kids who wear glasses get TEASED. They break them. They forget them. Okay, maybe it should read more like "Poor parents of kids who have to wear glasses." When she does get glasses I am going to try my hardest to make sure they look good on her, AND we'll be getting an insurance plan for them pronto.
Incredibly long, rambling story short: Layla has vision that is going downhill. But she doesn't need glasses. Yet.
New topic: (too tired for a transition) I had Layla's first preschool conference today. As a teacher, I hated/loved conferences. When they were bad, they were AWFUL. When they were good, they could almost make me cry happy tears. There seemed to be very few in-between conferences. Blech. So glad those days are not in front of me right now.
Anyway, it was so funny to be on the parent end of conferences! Keep in mind, this is preschool. Glorified daycare. But Layla loves it, and she really loves her teacher Mrs. Nelson. Mrs. Nelson has been teaching at this school for at least 16 years, and she is very high energy and silly. Layla especially adores when Mrs. Nelson gets silly, so I adore Mrs. Nelson for getting silly. :) I know that feeling, of being willing to do just about anything to get a child to pay attention and engage in something, but...man. I'm also pretty sure I could never go to the level that preschool teachers go to when they try to get 3 and 4-year-old kids to learn something. That takes HUMILITY.
At the start of school they did a very (veeeeeeery) simple, one page assessment on each kid:
1. How far can they count on their own? Layla could count well, but she had gaps. She got 1-17, 21-27, etc. I guess this is normal for this age. We never really worked on anything other than counting to ten with her.
2. Can they recognize their own name? She can! We have never worked on this with her, other than just this week when she has been asking me to write letters and numbers so she can copy them. I wrote her name down, but I have seriously never tried to teacher her how to write it, recognize it, etc.
3. Can they identify 8 different shapes? She got 6 of the 8, initially. Missed rectangle and oval. Claire would totally have nailed those as a 2-year-old. ;) Again, maybe if Mama cared at all...and, you know...tried to teach her things...
4. Can they identify 10 different colors? She got 8 of the 10...missed brown and black. That was interesting to me and made me think of my Dad, and his "these green pants are clearly blue" incident.
The teacher says she is totally normal and right on track, maybe above a bit, in what she knows and how she can learn. This would make sense to me just because she is the oldest kid in her class, but it was also interesting to me how much I did not care about these things. These things??? She'll get them. Eventually. In time. No biggie at all. I thought I might be a bit more protective of her, but I just can't work up the energy right now...she's fine. ;)
Mrs. Nelson DID say that Layla likes to be silly. She also likes to be silly with her new BFF Evie, who I guess she solidified her bond with this week. Mrs. Nelson says they hug, tell each other "I love you," and hang out quite often. CUTE! (The "making her first friend away from Mama" part is cute, not the being silly part...that we will be keeping an eye on, but again...it's preschool. I find myself not being able to work up any energy about a preschool kid who likes to be silly, right? Don't worry. I'm on it. I'm watching. I'm just not reacting very fast...) ;)
When asked if I had any questions, I did. Layla has a few speech delays that I know are normal for a 2 or 3-year-old, possibly, but now that she is 4 and in a formal school setting, I wondered what Mrs. Nelson thought about her speech. She said "Oh, yeah! That's right! She doesn't have a few speech issues, and we do have a hard time understanding her every now and then, but it wasn't really at the front of my mind because she clearly is not a kid that needs fast intervention right now. However, we should keep an eye on her, and we'll meet again in December or January to see if we think a speech evaluation is the right way to go." So, I'm glad I asked. Because I feel like as her parent, he speech issues are so cute to me, and in some ways I hope they stay as long as possible--as long as they are just normal kid things. BUT, if she really does have a speech problem of some sort, as minor as it may be, I would like her to be seen ASAP and have things evaluated and taken care of before she becomes self-conscious of it, or before other kids tease her, etc.
(Her speech issues are her inability to say the letters "L, "F," and the "Th" blend, which I know is a more advanced skill than the "L" or "F." She also loves to talk like a baby at times, which I know is also a little kid thing, but I sometimes find myself wondering if she is doing that for a reason. There may be other things too that I'm forgetting right now.)
Mrs. Nelson asked if there had been any speech issues on either side of the family, because I guess if a parent/aunt/uncle/grandparent had issues, then it tends to be more common in the family? This seemed odd to me, but maybe it's just because I've never heard this before. Genetics are strange creatures. Anyway, I couldn't think of any--I felt like maybe one of my brothers was seen for a very short time, but I can't remember who it might have been. Dan? Eric? I feel like I just remember funny stories being told around the dinner table of their impressions of speech therapy, but I could be wrong. Did any Schaefer boys / parents have speech issues? I guess I don't know that either. :) We'll find out.
In addition to this, it dawned on me that Layla had her tongue clipped when she has just a few weeks old--maybe 3 or 4?--to help her nurse better. While we both doubted this had anything to do with how she currently pronounces letters, it is something to ask about, I guess, if we meet with the speech pathologist eventually.
So, that's it for now. Conference #1 down, 2 or 3 more to go per child, for the next 14 years or so... Bring it.
