She loves her baby brother with all her heart! I mean she loves this little boy fiercely. There is not a jealous bone in her body when it comes to him. I was watching a show tonight on sibling jealousy in Japan, and just sat there thinking how amazing it is that we haven't dealt with the things they were talking about. She loves to help care for him. She doesn't resent it when her needs have to wait a moment because I am caring for Kai. She WANTS him to be taken care of first. This morning was a perfect example.It was a Saturday morning so we had no alarm set, and usually that means the kids wake us up. But now that we have two, they entertain themselves in their room for a while, and we don't have to get up the moment they wake up. Hana and Kai had been talking a playing for a while, when I heard Hana tell Kai she needed to go tee tee. As she was opening the door to leave the room, Kai started to cry. So she closed the door and went back to him and comforted him, then tried again. Again he cried, and so she went back to comfort him. It was so sweet. There was no frustration in her tone, no exasperation, just sweetness. And she was telling him she needed to go "REALLY BAD" but still wouldn't leave him crying. So I got up to go and rescue her.
She wants to hold him and feed him. When he falls and bumps his head or something she runs to comfort him, and often times he calms down and I don't have to get involved at all. This last Friday at cafe they played together in the toy room at church so happily, for well over an hour. When they went in there Kai was fussy and wanting me to hold him so I thought it wouldn't last very long, but he was so happy playing with his sissy. I could even go and check on them and Kai made no attempt to come to me and didn't care when I walked away, he was happy as could be with his big sister.
They are just so sweet together. I'm so thankful that God is growing her into such a wonderful big sister.
She is learning a lot in home school. She is picking up reading slowly. At first, she seemed to catch on quickly, but now she is suddenly lazy. She wants to do every part of home school except the part where we learn the sounds that consonant and vowel blends make, and the part where she has to sound out words. She even pretends not to be able to sound out words that I know she recognized the minute she saw it. Not sure why she is doing this, but I am just patiently trying to help her through it, and hopefully pretending to not be able to do it will get old soon.
She loves numbers though. She is counting by tens. Oh and writing the number 3 and all other numbers beautifully in case you keep up with my blog and you're wondering, lol! She wants to count EVERYTHING. If we are reading a book, she wants to stop and count the items on the page often. I catch her counting the things around her all the time. She is starting to add a little bit too. She will do that on her own, she'll tell me she has two spoons for me and Daddy and needs one more so that makes three. I think Math is going to be one of her favorite subjects.
For some reason over the holidays she suddenly became very good at writing. When before, I had to constantly show her how to keep it between the lines on her lined papers, and how to make lower case letters bellow the dashed line, now she is doing it all herself. In her play time she asks for lined paper and writes lots of letters, even ones she hasn't been officially taught yet. And now when she has writing assignments, she really takes her time and is working hard to form the letters instead of just trying to get it over with as quickly as possible and being messy. I don't know what changed, but it is neat to see her being so devoted to it.
She still really loves memory verses and practices them all the time. I never thought that would be one of her favorite parts of home school.
Tonight in the bath she washed and conditioned her hair all by herself, all I helped with was rinsing it out. And she washed all by herself. She is getting so big, I still can't believe it sometimes. It won't be long before I can send her into the bath all by herself. Amazing!How much longer can I call her my baby girl?
