To My Peanut

The start of a Blog, the start of a new life

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

My Big Girl


Kayla is now 4 going on 5, she's such a lovely happy girl, always full of energy and a little stubborn sometimes.

We had her second term evaluation at her school this past weekend, this is her last year before she goes to pre-school. The teacher said she's very advanced for her age and she can tell when children get stimulation from home or not. I feel I could spend some more one-on-one time with her than I do now, this is something I should dedicate myself to more. We don't let Kayla watch a lot of TV, during the week she sees maybe an hour or less of TV each day, she watches a bit more on the weekends, but not exagerated. We taught her how to write her name and she managed to write it just after she turned 3. She now writes most of the letters and some numbers. I know she's a very smart kid.

We've set a bedtime schedule that she knows already - teeth, pijamas, story and bed. Sometimes she lies playing in her bed and we have to get a bit cross before she falls asleep, which could take hours sometimes...

She stays a night on the weekend at grandma's house, which she loves, it's good quality time for them.

We've recently set a new rule (again) about eating chocolates and sweets during the week, we had this a while back, but started giving now and then, which became everyday, so now, treats only for weekends, she accepts it without a struggle.

She will be going to the Adventist school this year, starting pre-school, they have similar teaching as us and it will be good for her to be in an envirement that teaches songs about God and where they pray. The good thing too is that they don't celebrate Carnaval and the traditions of the Catholic church (no offence meant to Catholics, it's just not our beliefs). At the moment where she is she doesn0t go to school at Carnaval time and Halloween, the problem is they speak about it the first week or two and after too, but we explain to her why we don't like those celebrations... One of the things the teacher mentioned at the evaluation was that she learns well this this and then she said traditions "which is important", I nearly said we don't abide by most traditions, but I kept quiet... Most of the traditions are Catholic traditions which they think everyone celebrates. Now for Easter the Portuguese (and maybe other countries) eat what they call "amêndoas", chocolates with nuts inside, this they say is part of the Easter tradition... Not something I care to teach Kayla, not a tradition I care much about... The tradition of Easter for me is remembering the meaning of Easter, Jesus who died for our sins and rose from the dead on the third day, that's the true meaning of Easter, which I must still explain to Kayla and hopefully she will speak about that at school, hehe! They're going to the factory where they make the "amêndoas", which I also don't care much for, but at least she will learn that they don't automatically come from the supermarket in packets, she will see there's a process behind it, but they're going because it's part of the Easter tradition.

Kayla's English and Portuguese are very good and people are surprised that she speaks both, I'm glad we stuck to the English when she was only speaking English and not Portuguese. I think Andrew will take longer to get there, Kayla was speaking much more and more clearly at his age, but all children are different and I am not one to compare one to another to make one seem less intelligent than the other.

1 Comments:

At 10:50 AM, Blogger Sunshine said...

I remember that photo!!! Hehehe - Luis and I couldn´t stop going on about how photogenic she is!

From what i´ve read - you´ve worked out a really healthy schedule for her and you´ve motivated Luis and I to do with our kids one day what you´ve done with Kayla and Andrew - teach them both portuguese and english.

She´s doing great buds - Peanut´s really come a long way! =)

 

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