Walking, schooling and just plain adorable-ness

The last couple days has been so event filled, I don't know how I contain myself. And yet, my blog yesterday was about the bad thing that happened and not the several good things that happened! So I'm rectifying that today.

Elizabeth took her first unassisted steps yesterday!! Yippee!! I have a walker!

Wait. Why am I saying Yippee? Shouldn't I be filled with dread? I mean, I have 2 older kids and I remember what it means when they start walking. They start getting into more trouble. They can now get into things that were a little more off limits before. And walking leads to running. Running away from mommy in near-death experiences like the parking lot at Walmart. Okay, remind me again why I was so excited and encouraging this?

Oh yea. Because it's so cute to watch her take her first steps! It's amazing to see those "firsts" and watch them light up as they accomplish something new. So, I'll take those other things to watch that.

I also had Zachary's parent-teacher conferences yesterday. His teacher couldn't say enough about how much more mature Zachary is now than he was at the beginning of the year. She said she doesn't have to speak to him, well, ever now. He's on top of things and getting along with the other kids for the most part, so things are good in that area! Yay!!

However, they did do some testing for all the students. One of those tests was for word fluency (or something similar to that) which is basically sounding out 3 letter words. Zachary tested "at risk" in that category. So, even though he is at or above in every other category he has qualified for summer school. The teacher expressed her dismay at those scores because, in her words "he is definitely not near the bottom of the class". I explained how I have difficulty with him in that very skill. I believe that it's not that he can't do it...but instead won't. He is too impatient to figure it out, so he'll start guessing by using the context of the pictures, other words, what have you. I also let her know that I'm 100% not against year round schooling, especially for him. Routine is such a major component of his behavior that I've been concerned about him having 3 months off and how long it would take him to adjust (more than likely a month or more) just to turn around and go back to school, and adjust all over again (for a couple months, I'm sure!). So, we may be sending him to summer school and I consider that a good thing.

Lucas Michael. Oh, that boy is adorable. He's getting absolutely rave reviews from school. He's had a wonderful day every day this week and today the preschool teacher told me that they were impressed with how much knowledge he has and is retaining about the planets. It's no surprise to me...they've always interested him so he's spouting off something completely out of the blue all the time. Yesterday, we were sitting there watching t.v. and he looks at me and says "Pluto is the coldest of all the planets." It's like these facts are just swimming around in there, being brought up to the surface more often than not.

Today, however, he fell off a swing in the backyard and bit the skin under his bottom lip open. Chuck took him to ER (it was gaping...and in the spot its at, you can't easily use a butterfly bandage or anything) and they didn't feel it was necessary to put in stitches. But, if it's looking infected bring him back in. Wonderful. He won't leave it alone either so it keeps re-opening. He'll have a killer scar to show the chicks and impress them when he's a little older ;)