Tilly Scott Makes Four
It has been over a year since I have blogged. I got so frustrated because this site removed the ability to block the spam or password protect the blog. I get dozens of spam messages on this site every day. Nonetheless, I will give this a go.
We welcome our precious daughter, Matilda Scott, or affectionately Tilly Scott, November 18th. She is such a sweet blessing. We have joked that it’s a good thing she came second because she doesn’t sleep through the night and cries at least twice as much as Mally did, but bless her, she is so darn cute.
She is rolling to her side, but not all the way over. She is smiling and laughing. She is truly happy when she is not wailing. LOL. She has so much dark hair. Everyone has been shocked by that after our little bald baby Mally. I think it’s got a lot more orange tint to it than M had. I hear those K boys all had hair like this.
Her eyes are still very blue so we’ll see how those look in a few months. She is also big like M. Tilly Scott weighed 8 lbs 9 oz. Now she is 13 pounds. This is the 90th percentile, in case you were wondering.
So many changes have come to us since my last blog entry that I can’t begin to discuss them all. Clearly we have a new baby, but other things have happened as well. I worked about 2 weeks into the school year in August before being laid off from my teaching job. I will never be convinced that I was not targeted because I was pregnant. It was a job I truly struggled with, so getting laid off was more of a blessing in many ways. It is hard to work somewhere that you have to have Child Protective Services on speed dial in your phone. Of course, I was pregnant, so that completely sent us into crisis mode. I found temporary work at a fabulous school for a few weeks in the fall, but that was only temporary. I wanted to stay home with Matilda Scott, but I didn’t want to be FORCED to do it. Anyway, all other searches for work have led to nothing. So, I am beginning to take in children again as I did when Mally was a baby. I am much better equipped to do so now since all of my school stuff is in the purple house. I have wanted to have my own school for ages, so this could be my big chance. I am not so interested in the paperwork and dealing with taxes, etc., but will start small and go from there.
And I am pulling Mally out of school at the end of February. I should have done this months ago for our financial sanity. I should never have sent her to school for her academic welfare. This truly is why I decided to blog again. This stuff drives me to the brink. I think that no matter what your child’s abilities may be, they deserve to have their needs met. This is something I often dealt with as a teacher, often having multiple assignments for any given topic because children need work on their level. The day I went to school to tell the director I would be withdrawing M at the end of the month, the students were gluing numbers in order. From 1 to 6. I truly felt like puking. I felt like puking because I feel, as I said in previous entries, that I am wasting whole months and years of her life. I have seen her LOVE for learning squashed by the teachers unable or unwilling to make adjustments to curriculum for students that are out of the norm.
Birth to age 5 is the most critical time period of a person’s life and she is spending 7 hours of her day on things she could do at 2 years old. Let me give you an example to show why gluing to 6 is so pointless for my child. This weekend, a lady at a store gave her a measuring tape. First she wanted to “measure my head circumference.” (The doctor did this a week ago so don’t be too impressed with that big word. lol) But in the car when she played with it, she was noticing that the cm went all the way to 150. What’s more, she was holding it upside down at the time. Ha ha! So she proceded to find random numbers to tell me. But remember, if she says “115″ the tape measure reads 110. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 120. So she was able to realize that the 5 between 110 and 120 is 115. But in class she is counting to 6. Ug. This poor educationally deprived child who notices things like her cup at dinner is shaped like an octagon. Don’t get me wrong…she loves school. But the best part is playing on the playground. (Isn’t that the case for every 4 year old?) She has definitely improved with her social skills. She likes her teachers and they are very nice. They just don’t know how to or don’t bother to differentiate for the gifted kids in the class.
So we had her tested. Her strengths were in visual acuity types of activities, scoring off the chart for 2 of those sections. Think of analogies of a square with a horizontal yellow line, a thin blue vertical line etc. is like a triangle with… So. We did not review or study or practice the testing AT ALL even though I was dying to because I have the knowledge and even the block design blocks to do the tests with. But I desperately wanted an accurate account of her abilities. If I had practiced with her, I would always wonder if I had skewed the data. Anyway, no need. She scored above the 99.5%tile. The weakness she had was on the Woodcock Johnson word reading. Even though she can sound out and blend words, she missed the very first one (said “no” instead of “on”). When she realized it, she refused to do the rest. This is so like my child. Perfectionist to the core. If it can’t be perfect, she doesn’t want to do it. At any rate, it was a long hour and I am glad it’s over. The good news is that we can now waitlist at Hynes and pray to get in March 7. She would go to school with a bunch of gifted 4 year olds and be challenged hopefully. I am sure she would love being in a classroom where 4 piece puzzles are not the norm. The other option is Audubon French Immersion where the French would be challenge enough I am sure. Option 3? I don’t know if there is a third option other than her staying home.
So. Looks like I am homeschooling from March thru May. I never ever considered homeschooling. Ever. I guess if she isn’t even in Pre-K yet, then it isn’t really homeschooling though. Right? But it is.
So, true to form, I will update her educational accomplishments next. This is the part where I always tell my readers to skip because it’s just really for me to have a record of it and see some progress, etc.
Reading: She reads any CVC word, tons of sight words, and names of anyone she knows. Here is where I say I did not teach her how to read. One day she just…did it. I will forever remember Along Comes Jake as the book when I realized Mally had taught herself how to read. I had not unpacked my zillions of guided reading books because I did not want to pressure her into reading on her own too soon. But as I heard her night after night trying to sound out words to regular books like Chrysanthemum or Curious George, I thought it was time. In less than a week she was reading better than any of my kindergarteners did at the end of the year. She was 3.
Math: I have no idea how high she can count because I haven’t asked her. It’s at least 100. I would say higher, but not sure really. But she can identify at least to 150. LOL. She likes to add and subtract, but we rarely do it so not sure how many of those she has mastered. With objects or fingers, she is good to go. Haha
Puzzles: Before Christmas she found a dinosaur puzzle in the purple house. She insisted on putting it together. After 2 hours I made her go to bed. She cried. She woke up early to finish it before school. It has 200 pieces. Apparently she hadn’t been doing puzzles at home because they were too easy. I had only 24 piece puzzles I think. Now we have lots of 100 piece ones. Thank you, Santa. At school, I promise you they only have the tray puzzles with exception to floor puzzles. The tray puzzles last week had 8 pieces. Yes, 8. I read today that the average 4 year old can put together a puzzle with 4 pieces. FOUR. These things blow my mind. When I forget and just think she is normal, I read those things and am amazed at her all over again. To those of you who don’t know, they say puzzles are one of the biggest markers of mathematical success for a child. So I was depriving my child of math skills with our pitiful 24 piece puzzles.
Writing: She is so frustrated when she thinks she can’t write something. Super perfectionist.
Now I feel so much better! Other than academics, she is busy being the best big sister ever! She started soccer and is terrible at it. LOL. But loves it and looks cute in pink shoes. She is in dance still and loves it so much. She is obsessed with Taylor Swift to a point where I question it being healthy. She even wants to move to Nashville. LOL. And dolphins. Lord knows, is there any other animal in the world? She wanted Tilly Scott to be a dolphin, but Sweetie Pie Pumpkin is a baby.




This pic is from Christmas. She LOVES this dress, but I need to fix the hem because it was a little too long and kept getting stepped on. (OK, it’s a size 4, but she HAD to have it!)