Confessions

I've decided to make some confessions. Maybe if it's out in the air I'll do something about it.

1. I still have two placentas in my freezer.

2. My hair is still peach and hasn't been cut in at least six months. It was cut by a whacko that thought I wanted a wedge when I said I wanted it choppy and layered.

3. I still have no hair dryer or curling iron... I'm verging on looking like a sheepdog.

4. Despite my utter lack of ability to provide my husband with a presentable wife, I have managed to buy a water cooler and water for it. Priorities anyone?

5. I almost clobbered Eden for trying to carry a carton of eggs on her head today.

That's enough for now.

I'm reading the greatest book called "Ready Set Read." Well actually I devoured it in less than 24 hours and am beating myself all up for not teaching Eden the steps of learning to read in the correct order. The most obvious part that I had never considered, she presented so simply.

" Would it suprise you to know that the child who knows all twenty-six letters by name is really no closer to reading than the one who knows none at all? Once you've seen how the phonetic approach to reading works, you'll understand completely.
Knowing the names of letters does not facilitate reading at all; it may even make it more difficult. A child can look at a word and say "dee - oh - gee" from breakfast to dinner never have a clue that those letters spell the word dog. However, if he has learned the phonetic sounds for those letters instead of their names, he will string the sounds together easily to for a word with which he is familiar."

I've been banging my head against a wall for a couple of months realizing that I hadn't put enough emphasis on letter sounds over names but this took the cake. The idea of presenting the sounds before the letter names is genius. Eden's known the capital alphabet since she was two. She's known the lower case alphabet for almost a year since a teacher pointed out to me that kids use way more lower case letters than capital. Now I realize I could have put my energy to so much better use.
Whatever, I've called Eden the guinea pig all along. That's just what happens to first children. We can't stand to take advice from other people and we don't know which books to read. Most of it would be completely irrelevant to our particular child anyway so we think why bother. I feel like I say "live and learn" so much that it annoys even me to hear myself say it.

So hey, here's a chuckle to leave you with. Nick was mind bendingly fussy tonight. I'm sure it's my latest addiction to snow peas twisting his poor little gut. Nothing I could do was right. I was in the middle of trying to soothe him with nursing which never works on him and could vaguely process the fact that Eden was saying in a very low voice "okay, don't worry mom, I'll be very careful, very very---- I looked up and she had the rocking horse at the top of the stairs that go down to our foyer. It's 10 stairs to be exact. She was sitting on top of the horse hanging onto the railing and about to plunge down the stairs. I kid you not. In my most screetching voice I forbade her from embarking on something that would almost guarantee a trip to the ER and she was completely CRUSHED. She tried explaining over and over how careful she would be. She pleaded in her most eloquent voice, to no avail. I am, after all, a half hazard mom but come on!