Third week of November - School pictures and all kinds of testing

Maxwell playing soccer with Jason (note the gloves on Max's hands..he was playing goalie)

I did some REAL labor in the front yard flower beds taking some plants out.  I had to work hard with a big shovel to get these stinkers out.  

After - -all cleaned up for the winter.  I can't wait for spring when it will be colorful again.

Rocking her pebbles ponytail

Her hair is really growing now

Emmalyn and her best friend, Landen on their way to pick up Maxwell from his classroom.

My handsome kid on picture day at school.

Cheeeeeese

His pictures turned out great - I thought they did a great job of capturing his authentic smile (which can be hard to do)!

What a mess! (Poor Britt had to give her a bath she was so messy)

Post bath play-dough fun

Happy Emmalyn

Pouty Emmalyn

Mad Emmalyn

Playing at the park

Maxwell brought his sunglasses with him to the park and his bag that he likes to wear at messenger bag style.  The kid loves to wear sunglasses.

This time was the first time I've seen Maxwell sit normal on the swing and try to pump his legs.  He doesn't have it down but it was fun to see him try.

There's that curl on her forehead - - -it shows up every once in a while.

Reading with Momma

I made an appointment for Maxwell to get a flu shot.  He was so excited last year that I thought he'd be happy about it but he wasn't.  He cried - - with tears.  :(  I think the memories of the 4 shots he had to get in August probably are a little fresh.

It was a busy week for Maxwell at school...

First - Maxwell is now a "non-napper".  That means after lunch when all the 3 and 4 year olds have to go take a nap, Maxwell doesn't have to.  He hasn't been actually going to sleep for a little while now but the rule was that a child had to stay a non-napper until they were 4 1/2 (which he won't be until February).  The school made an exception for Maxwell since he wasn't sleeping anyway and it's not like his behavior went down when he didn't get the nap.  He was OVER the moon when his teacher told him he could be a non-napper.  He's wanted to be one for a while now.

Max also took a vision and hearing test at school.  The state says all kids have to be tested the year before they go into Kindergarten.  So, he passed the hearing test but the results from the vision test say that he needs to follow up with a visit to an ophthalmologist.  The paper they sent home said that the results were inconclusive.  So he didn't pass but he didn't fail either.  My thought is that maybe he was joking around or not behaving well when they were trying to test him so they couldn't say conclusively that his eyesight is okay.  So, I will take him to a doctor but I imagine it will be a waste and they will just say that his eyes are fine.

When they did the testing, we also had Maxwell go through an Intelligence Test.  I've always thought he's pretty smart but wondered if that was just my perception as a doting parent and that he was just a typical boy.

I'm including the results in my blog not because I want to brag on him but for journaling purposes, I'd like to come back and review results.  Who knows how buried that email will be in 5 years, etc.

He took what is called the Slosson Intelligence Test (SIT).  So his SIT IQ level is between 131-153.  It wasn't an exact number, but a range.  Anything above a 128 puts him at a 96% level compared to kids his same age.  That's as high as the levels go.  The description of his ability is "very high".  Maxwell was 4 years and 2 months old when he took the test and the results of the test showed him at a mental age of 6 years and 6 months.

The test analyzed performance in mental age (so comparing him to a 6 year 6 month aged child) strengths and weaknesses and listed him as having a mild strength in vocabulary and a mild weakness in similarities/differences.

They also analyzed his chronological age strengths and weaknesses and listed him as having a moderate strength in vocabulary, a mild strength in information and no significant weaknesses.

Vocabulary is defined as: "This involves word knowledge, expressive language, and verbal fluency.  It relies on memory, language development, and the storage of information. A word may be presented as FORK for a younger child and DEMOCRACY for an older child.  Both would need to define and describe them.
Information is defined as: "This is general knowledge which is gained from long term memory and educational experiences.  Questions may include names of body parts, objects, dates, historical/geographic facts, and other information gained from general understanding.  For example, a  young child may be asked to point to a shoulder, and an older child may be asked who George Washington was.

It was interesting to read the results and see what they observed in Maxwell.  I would have been really interested to see how they delivered the screening and came to the results.

Emmalyn goes to Montessori School

Brittany and her family went to visit Joe's family for two weeks so we had to figure out something to do with the kids.  We decided to go on vacation too for one of the weeks but for the other week, we took Maxwell AND Emmalyn to Maxwell's school while we worked.

I was quite nervous about how Emmalyn would do since she's never been to day care or anything like that.  Would she eat the lunch I prepared for her?  What would she do during nap time when she would have to lie on a mat and go to sleep - - no crib, no dark room, no sound machine.

I tried to get a pic of both of them outside but Emmalyn wouldn't stand still! (look how tan those kids are!)

Maxwell was excited to go to school and see some of his friends that he hasn't seen for over a month.  So the drop off for him went well.  Then I went to drop off Emmalyn in her class.  As you might expect, she cried when I went to leave.  It was AWFUL to have to walk out of that room with her crying.  

I stood for many minutes just watching the video feed to make sure she was okay.  She quickly calmed down and sat in her teacher's lap. (She's on the lap of the teacher in the upper middle but it's hard to see.)

I went back to the room a few minutes later to check on Emmalyn and she had moved off the teacher's lap and was sitting by herself listening to the Spanish teacher who was talking to the class and singing to them.

I thought about Emmalyn all day.  The receptionist was such a kind woman who saw how much I was struggling to leave Emmalyn and told me she'd check on her throughout the day and call me an update me.  She, along with many of the staff at the school, just love Emmalyn because they would see her when Brittany came to pick up Maxwell each day.  So, they were very excited to have her at school.  (I have been asked from the time we signed Maxwell up for school when we would be bringing her to school too.  I can't blame them.  She's a cute, fun girl.)

When the receptionist called me later that morning and let me know she was doing great, I felt much better.  I was so tempted to leave work during lunch and go check on her but I didn't because I knew I would be tempted to just pull her out and bring her back to work with me.

When I came to pick them up, Emmalyn was playing with some of the toys having a great time.

The great thing about being in the toddler class (unlike Max's preschool class) is that you get a DAILY UPDATE about the day!  It helped to know how she did in detail.  AND she took a nap!  It wasn't very long because one of the other kids woke up and started crying and woke her up but hey, she took a nap!

The next morning when I dropped her off she cried for probably 20 seconds and then was fine and sat with the other kids.  She had stopped crying before I even walked away from the door in the hallway outside the room.

Maxwell in his classroom with Ms. Cynthia

Emmalyn have a great time playing when I came to pick her up.

...wait!  Is that a pony tail on top of her head???

It WAS a pony tail!  Apparently it's part of the routine in the class.  After nap time all the girls get their hair fixed and Emmalyn wanted hers done.  This was her first pony tail!  I had no idea she had enough for a pony tail, even a little one!

You know, just a typical dinner (not) of doughnuts

That pony tail!  Kept cracking me up.  I guess I need to start doing more than just putting her in head bands (which is good because she's starting to pull the headbands off)

Both kids sitting to color (what?!  Emmalyn doing this?!  Thank you Montessori!)

This is the picture of a girl in the middle of a FIT.  Oh joy.

The next day when I dropped the kids off, Emmalyn's class was outside playing.  I dropped her off and walked away.  No crying.  She just sat down by her teacher and was happy.  (When I drove away I stopped to watch the class and the receptionist was out there holding her already.  Like I said, that girl is loved!)

Ugh.  See this?  This is how much I pumped.  Not even enough to cover the bottom of the bottle.  SO FRUSTRATING!!!!!  Sigh.  I just wish so hard it was better.  I don't want to give it up but it's sort of crazy to keep fighting so hard to get nothing.

That night I had to go out of town for a meeting in the morning in Minneapolis.  So, Peter was completely on his own with no Brittany in town.  He, of course, handled it because he's awesome.

Maxwell and I facetimed.  He was excited to show me the watch he made in school.  During the summer they do theme weeks and the theme for the week is all about Spies.

Time with dad = dressing up complete with two swords and a shield

Emmalyn brought this home - sweet little foot!

I'm still working on getting my 10,000 steps in a day so when I landed at the Minneapolis airport (at like 11 pm), I walked the airport until I had gotten my steps in.  It was nice and empty.

Daddy's girl all dressed for school the next day.

When I got home I was able to see Maxwell before he went to bed.  He was excited to show me the spy glasses he had made at school that day.

It was a nice, quick trip to Minneapolis and luckily my meetings went well and didn't run long so I was able to meet our friends Jessica and John, who used to live in Dallas, for lunch.  

Friday came quickly and it was a successful week at school!  The older kids got to enjoy playing with water outside.  Isn't Emmalyn's outfit adorable?!

She immediately walked in and went up to her teacher.  I am so grateful to the great staff at the school who made the week go even better than I would have imagined and welcomed her with such open arms even though she was only there for a week.

When I went to pick her up the kids were finishing a snack.  I had wondered how meals and snacks went and so they put the kids in these chairs and then were able to buckle them in - genius!

She was happily hanging out and didn't even fuss for me to get her out when I got there.

I celebrated a successful week at school by stopping for ice cream cones at DQ on the way home.

Maxwell got his EXTRA special - it was dipped.

mmmmmm

It was such a great experience.  I am so grateful to have Brittany to watch my kids and I wouldn't change that but it was really nice to now that if we had to, we could send both kids to school and they'd be well taken care and thrive.

Emmalyn's final "report card".  By the end of the week she figured out how to get a decent length nap and had lots of fun.