Week 213 motherhood – Curriculum night, magnetic tiles, first optometrist visit

Her first “homework”

Week 213 of motherhood with 4 year old and 21 month old.

October 10 to 16, 2024:

October 11: The 4 year old had her photo day at school (we gave her lots of information in advance, telling her it might be held in the gym and that all the kids will be lining up to have their picture taken and to make sure to look at the camera man. Grandma even told her that the photographer might touch her head to adjust her hair [but of course the child said she didn’t want that happening]). She tends not to like strangers taking her photo and will look away (like when we are at restaurants for a group photo and she doesn’t look at the camera on purpose) and my biggest fear was that we would get back photos that didn’t look good or that she would have to go to the photo retake day (more nerve-racking for her to go through it again).
But when she came home from school, she said she looked at the camera and it seemed like things well went. Can’t wait to see the pictures.
In the evening was the school’s first Curriculum Night where families were invited to meet the educators and walk through their child’s classroom (I can’t imagine for families who have 2 or 3 kids how they can squeeze the time to visit all 2 or 3 classrooms in that short one hour’s time…).
We were excited to attend and meet the teacher again officially and see the child in her classroom environment. Her teacher had prepared a “scavenger hunt” for them to find certain items and show them to the families; cute idea. It was a casual night where we got handouts about the child’s kindergarten expectations for the year and some information on the PowerPoint on the SmartBoard. (When we passed by other classrooms, it seemed that some teachers were hosting full-on SmartBoard presentations to the seated families.)
It was interesting that the 21 year old was perfectly comfortable in the classroom and at ease and went straight to sit at one of the tables to play with playdoh lol.
The 4 year old’s teacher talked to us briefly that night and told us that she saw great progress with our child: that she helped the teacher collect the classmates’ communication folders in the morning; and that she and another student held hands and browsed the classroom one day. I’m so glad to hear this kind of progress! I briefly asked her if she had any “concerns” for our child but she didn’t say anything was out of the ordinary which is such a STARK contrast to her original teacher… amazing. I like that this teacher is patient and understanding of our child and that she naturally needs time to adjust to school. She hasn’t forced anything on us or mentioned anything about needing support staff to help her. I’m so glad she sees the progress and is delighted about it too. She is a great teacher already for our child. ^_^
She asked us if we were okay with her taking photos of the child and I was like, yes, absolutely! I check the school platform every day and haven’t seen photos from the new teacher yet lol.
After the classroom visit, we left and walked through the rest of the school. The child didn’t want to use the toilet inside her classroom but we went to the one in the hallway instead.
I really like that the principal and vice-principal stood in the entrance area and greeted everybody hello and good-bye. The principal remembers my child’s name. (Out of 530 students in the school, she remembers her name!)
The child showed us the gym and the library upstairs. It was grandma’s first time seeing these rooms.
I liked that lockers in the hallways actually had the kids’ names on them. Back when I was a child, I remember we just remembered where our lockers were and never had them labelled with our names. It feels more homey this way.
The next day, I indeed saw a photo on the school platform where the child was holding her friend’s hand inside the classroom. The teacher took a photo of their backsides (which I understand because she didn’t want to intrude on the kids — especially since my child can be skittish). So glad to see her photo on the school platform finally! 😀
This week, the 21 month old wants me to sing “zoom zoom zoom” more often than the “rolly polly” song.
October 16: This past week, we stayed home and didn’t go out much because I was recovering from a cold.
The 21 month old is really into magnetic tiles these days (about the same age when we brought them home for the firstborn and she was into them too) and likes us to build a house for her. She will shout “uk!” and wants us to use the tiles to make a house for her. She then will want to put a wooden peg person in it and make a “zzz” sound for sleeping because the person is sleeping in the house haha.
She doesn’t know how to build the house herself just yet but she’s learning to put the magnetic tiles together. It’s a work in progress. I can’t wait to see her creations because her sister gradually made amazing creations too the more often she played with them.
It was funny because just as my friend who also has a girl kid in JK this year asked me about whether my child has homework and I told her “basically no and all we’re expected to do is read to her daily and go through the songs/poems in her poetry folder every week,” the 4 year old’s teacher actually gave her a sheet with the letters “A” in upper and lower case on it for her to practise at home because they learned about it at school and the child wasn’t participating. Also, a sheet in the poetry folder was about tracing numbers and using numbers. So technically, this was her “homework”.
The 4 year old really enjoys this handiwork stuff. She likes to practise writing her name on her own and can actually write her entire name now by herself! She practises writing out numbers too. She wanted to know what her sister’s name was too so she could write it out on a sheet of paper. Intrinsic desire to learn to read and write!
She has completed one of the sticker books now. She really enjoys sitting there on the couch after dinner and sticking the stickers in the right places. I’m pretty sure this child is an introvert and will be one in the future too.
We had fun with some pipe cleaners this week — open-ended play. They manipulated them to make glasses for the face, a bracelet (which the 21 month old wore out once), and other things. So silly but simple fun.
DH had a long overdue outing with a friend, so it was just us at home with the kids. I’m glad that the 4 year old can sit by herself to eat now. She prefers to sit at her own table now (not sure if I blogged about this but we started putting her in a kid’s table and chair next to our dining table so that she can hopefully get used to eating by herself or with other kids at school). I took the advice that the EarlyON facilitator gave me at the Orange Shirt day event.
We attended a community event with a local regional councillor. Both kids were well-behaved considering it was an adult event with adult performances. They enjoyed the free snacks. The 4 year old grabbed a bag of fruit candies (not my preference for her but she doesn’t eat these often anyway) and some cranberry and almond cookies. I can’t help but include the rude senior woman who was barking at me in Mandarin basically saying that these snacks were not suitable for kids. I didn’t understand exactly what she said to me but could tell that was her meaning. I barked back at her in Cantonese saying that my kids can eat anything they want. When she walked away from me, she shook her head at me… twice. It was so, so rude and uncalled for. DH later said she is probably someone who doesn’t have grandchildren because if you do, most elders spoil their grandkids and will give them snacks to eat. What in the world was that woman on?! Sooo rude.
There were chips too, which my 4 year old ate and enjoyed. It was a small bag and we hardly give them chips to eat at home anyway.
To our surprise, Doug Ford actually showed up too… we were appalled and surprised that it turned into a political event out of nowhere.
The 4 year old wanted to leave so we did and headed to the library where we read some books and played toys before we did another visit at the playground. We brought the bubbles to blow too. They love this playground.
On Thanksgiving Monday, DH prepared a traditional turkey dinner with the works. The kids carved pumpkins too. Both kids got to scooping the pumpkin guts out with a spoon. DH did the knife work.
DH and I had our monthly date night out. It was nice to eat dinner without the kids and engage in interruption-free conversation.
DH had his first ever blood donation! So glad we finally got to do it because he had to cancel his last appointment because he was recovering from a cold last time. We brought the 4 year old with us and it was a great learning experience for her to see what it was like to give and donate blood. She was curious about the machines and the needles and the people working there. I answered her questions about the things she saw. It seems she shows interest to be a nurse because she says she wants to inject needles into people and help them withdraw blood.
I was grateful that they had many snacks available and the receptionist was very nice and told us we were all welcome to snacks (me and the 4 year old). The 4 year old kept snacking — dried cranberries, juice box, cookies, goldfish crackers. It was my first time visiting a blood donation centre too and I was so impressed with all of the snacks they have there. DH’s donation took less than 10 minutes (I was surprised it was so fast). He said it felt very calming there. There were lots of people donating that day (at least 60).
I came across some drawings at home that the 4 year old did and again like I mentioned last week, they were big happy smiling faces. I was very glad to see that. ^_^
This week, the 4 year old also had their Terry Fox day run. She told us that she ran in the park with the other kids. The teacher said something to grandma at pickup that day — it was something good — but too bad grandma didn’t understand the English to know what the teacher said exactly. I’m glad though. It still seems like a great positive thing.
The next day, the teacher at pickup told me that while on a nature walk, the 4 year old was holding hands with her friend and walked too fast and fell and scraped her knee. She didn’t want any help and didn’t cry either. That’s a win.
We also had the 4 year old’s first eye appointment this week. While she did fine with putting her chin on the equipment thing and looking forward to let the staff examine her eyes, she wasn’t comfortable at all inside the actual eye examination room with the optometrist. She wouldn’t look up or at the pictures on the wall or at the things that the optometrist was holding. She turned her body and didn’t want to engage. She did, however, nod her head or shake her head to certain questions that the optometrist asked. DH was holding her in his lap and thinks that perhaps being the centre of the attention in the room wasn’t great for her and the fact that the optometrist was really trying her best to talk and engage her (and that’s not the best strategy when it comes to this child). Oh, well. We will revisit the appointment again in half a year’s time. In the meantime, we will prep her more by watching YouTube videos of kids visiting optometrists so she can know what to expect (we didn’t do this recently). The optometrist did say we should monitor her at home for signs of looking at things too closely or from one side and to try covering her left and right eyes at a time to see if she has a dominant eye that she prefers, etc. Hopefully her next eye doctor appointment will be more smooth and efficient.
The 21 month old can use adult chopsticks to pick up irregular-shaped things like pasta noodles and potatoes! So impressive! She knows to have both chopsticks aligned before attempting the pickup.