Patterns!

Because Nadia has been making so much progress with learning her letters, I printed out a pack of activities yesterday for the book The Mitten by Jan Brett. We did quite a few of the activities today, which included tracing some lines (from a mitten to Nicki) to work on fine motor skills, playing a game of Memory with pictures of the animals in the story, putting a variety of mittens in order from smallest to largest, tracing the letter N (for Nicki), putting the animals in the same sequence as they are introduced in the story, singing a song about a missing mitten, etc. The activity which excited me the most was the patterning activity. I have tried to introduce patterns to Nadia before, but prior to today she didn't understand. She got it today! I started some patterns (using either 2 or 3 different characters), and she could finish the pattern (the pattern could be repeated 5 times total). She also started some patterns herself and finished those as well. She loved it, and I am so excited that she has begun to master the important skill of patterning.

Speaking of letters, we have been working on A, B, C, D, E, F, I, N, O, W, and X. She has mastered 7 of those (always gets B, C, I, N, O, W, and X right). She almost always gets A right. She still needs to work on D (which she sometimes calls B), E, and F. I don't want to add any new ones until she's mastered all eleven of those letters. What has been exciting is she is now pointing out those letters of her own inititiave and with great excitement when she spots them in a book or on a sign. I think we'll do Curdoroy next week as both kids have been enjoying that book lately.

Nadia also has eally rbeen enjoying playing "I spy with my little eye" lately. We use either a shape or color as the clue. I would like to try rhyming words, but she hasn't grasped the concept of rhyming yet. She also can do a 25 piece jigsaw puzzle by herself, even if it's a puzzle she's never seen before. Daddy has been the one working with her on puzzles.

Ian's eosinophilic esophagitis has definitely flared up again. At lunch after only ONE bite of applesauce he repeatedly vomited over and over again (projectile). I decided right then and there not to attempt to feed him solid foods for a few days. He was throwing up Elecare. He needs to keep that down! So the rest of the day I just gave him sippy cups that contained a mixture of vanilla almond milk and Elecare. The Elecare sample the Allergist gave me yesterday is unflavored. He definitely prefers the vanilla kind. I feel like a load is off my shoulders knowing I don't need to try to feed Ian solid food for a few days. I want to give his esophagus time to heal.

The good news is that he didn't  have ANY accidents today. I took him to the potty rather frequently in light of being on a completely liquid diet. Every time I took him he either peed or pooped. His diaper this morning was in fact only wet so I haven't had to clean any poop off him today. Whew.

The first two pictures were taken this evening (of Ian). The last picture was taken of Nadia on 11-1-09. I think my two little penguins are so cute!