Him and Her

Tonight is about “him,” my son and "her," my daughter.

The Big Boy Update:  
My son has been somewhat interested in learning his letters (or sounds as they refer to them in Montessori.)   By somewhat, I mean every so often he has an interest in something but for the majority of the time he doesn’t care much about them.

Montessori schools don’t worry so much about what the letter is called, “W” for example is a mouthful of syllables, but what the letter sounds like.   They refer to them as “sounds” because when learning how to read, you need to know what a letter sounds like in a word, not what the name of the constituent letters are that make up that word.

Over the summer we’ve tried to remember to work on the letter sounds with both my son and daughter, mostly my son though, due to his eleven-months seniority on his sister.   She’s a lot more interested in the sounds, but she’s also not mentally where he is and then there’s the whole attention span (or lack thereof) and it’s not been a very productive summer as far as letter sounds goes in this household.

My son does know there are letters and he knows that together, they spell words.   Any time I spell something to my husband or anyone else, he immediately asks what word I spelled.    Sometimes I tell him, since he’s shown he is paying attention in many cases when I think he is definitely not even aware I’m talking.  

When Star Wars started earlier this week, we read for him the introductory text that scrolled off the page.   He listened and then watched the movie.   At the end of the movie, the credits started rolling and my son excitedly said, “can someone read the words to me?”   We explained what movie credits were and how lots of people helped to make the movie.

We’ve started letting him know if he would like to read <insert thing he just showed interest in> we could help him with his sounds.    So far, he hasn’t been that interested.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:
My daughter is charming.   She’s friendly.   She’s pleasant and even thoughtful.    I have come to realize only recently that she’s also devious and she’s known darn well she’s been so for some time.

She can say, “I’m sorry” with such an air of sincerity that I’ve missed that she most likely wasn’t that sorry, but has learned saying so in a soft, contrite voice will get her out of potential trouble.  

Recently, she’s even caught herself doing things she’s not supposed to do—saying “poop”—and said, “I said poop, sorry, I won’t say it again” with a smile on her face.    And I’ve been buying these stories.  

She has mastered the knack of acting like she’s not really heard what you’ve said because she’s so happy singing a little diddy of her own (off key) that she’s gotten out of a reprimand her brother might have gotten no matter what he was doing.

In short, through wielding her powers of cute, she’s gotten away with a whole lot of things she shouldn’t have gotten away with from the start.

I am wise now.    I have the power of “Mom who expects well-mannered and disciplined children” and my powers trump hers.   (Until she figures out her next super power I’m not expecting.)