Betrivers Net Casino By understanding the rules, the dealer gets two cards in Australian Blackjack one face up. Betrivers net casino when your streak ends, the other hidden. How To Use Paypal For Online Gambling … [More...]
Archives for January 9, 2013
An Update on My Kids: Lucas, Age 5
On Monday, I gave you an update on my oldest, William. Today, it’s all about Lucas. He turned 5 years old in October, and he’s currently in pre-K.
As you may have noticed, William is giving us a run for our money. It all began at birth when he started acting colicky (which we determined was from a dairy intolerance). Actually, scratch that. Our troubles with William began in labor! My water broke before I had any contractions which made it all the more painful.
When I was pregnant with Lucas, I “told” him that he needed to compensate for all of my troubles with William. The obedient little thing that he is, he seems to have agreed! :) In every way that William’s issues complicate life, Lucas is decidedly normal. In so many ways, my boys are complete opposites. William has blond hair and blue eyes. Lucas has brown hair and brown eyes. William is tall and thin. Lucas is short and squat. (Though sadly, he’s lost his baby belly.) William is a thrill-seeker. Lucas is cautious. Name any characteristic, and I’ll tell you they’re opposites! Even their belly buttons are opposites (inny vs. outy)!
School
Lucas is also being homeschooled for the first time this year. After a year in a Montessori preschool last year, I determined that a self-directed method just wasn’t right for him. While he’s easy and fairly obedient, he does sometimes like to take the easy route in life. So this year, I’m fully directing his learning. I have just a few goals for him which include basic addition, early writing, and some reading. I can say that we’re well on our way to achieving our goals. I’m using “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lesson” and it’s working wonderfully. I’m really amazed by his reading. By the same token, his writing and math skills have improved tremendously since the start of the school year.
As with William, it remains to be seen where Lucas will go to school next year. He seems to really enjoy being homeschooled. It’s funny because I had actually considered sending Lucas to preschool and keeping William at home. Apparently I had it backwards. As odd as it sounds, my kids’ and their nail-biting tendencies are telling me a bit about their school preferences. Lucas started biting his nails last year (at the Montessori school), and he told me he did it because he was nervous around his friends. A little while into our school year at home, Lucas stopped biting his nails. He had been doing it for several months and I had given up all hope. I haven’t seen him bite a nail in a long time.
Sadly, William started biting his nails at the beginning of our school year at home. I’m trying not to put too much stock into it, especially given his SPD and oral-seeking tendencies. Nor am I putting all of our school decisions into the hands (literally) of a couple of nail-biting boys. But it’s hard not to make the connection!
Sleep
Lucas sleeps about 11 hours at night and takes an hour-long nap every day. He goes down around 8:30pm and wakes up around 7:00 or 7:30am. His nap is usually from 1:00-2:00pm. Sleep has always come easy to Lucas. While I gave up on William’s nap at age 2.5 (so young!), Lucas is showing no sign of giving up on his nap. He has no trouble falling asleep at night, and he’s happier after he’s had a nap. He will say that he doesn’t want to take a nap, but he never protests when I put him down.
If there’s one issue with sleep that we’ve dealt with in Lucas, it was when he was waking before 7:00am to play. He seemed to think that he was missing out on something, and always wanted to be the first one awake. Then realizing he was the only one up, he’d attempt to wake us all up. Unfortunately, William was all too willing to wake up when Lucas entered his room, even if William had fallen asleep late the night before. So we were dealing with two tired boys. We have since put a lock on William’s door to prevent Lucas from going in his room. It works so well and is so simple, I’m surprised I hadn’t thought of it before. William wakes when he needs to, and it encourages Lucas to sleep longer since he knows nobody will get up early with him.
Meals
Raising William has taught me a lot about food intolerances. At the same time that I had William tested, I had Lucas tested as well. I suspected that Lucas also had a dairy intolerance because at a year old, when I switched him to regular milk, he had severe constipation problems. We masked the symptoms with Miralax, but I wanted to get to the root of the issue. I switched him to goat’s milk, and the constipation cleared up, but it was clear that he didn’t tolerate that either. (I learned that the hard way, after an entire sippy cup of goat’s milk went down and right back up in the middle of a restaurant!)
Not knowing what to do, I switched him to Kefir thinking the fermentation process would make dairy easier on his stomach. Nonetheless, it was still dairy and after a year or so on Kefir, I took him off all dairy completely. The last straw, after the hundredth time he went running to the bathroom in a fit of nausea, was when he said, “Mommy, my tummy doesn’t like cheese.”
The results were incredible. His constant runny nose cleared up almost instantly. All of his issues with the “stomach flu” went away. All of my friends were telling me that it’s normal for a three- or four-year-old to get sick frequently. But I knew there was more to it. He’s been incredibly healthy, and even his asthma has improved.
Our only trouble with Lucas at mealtime is that he’s somewhat picky. We’ve made huge strides in this area, I’m happy to say. We’ve never given in to his picky eating. We took a slow and steady approach, just putting green stuff on his plate every night. He will always choose a burger and fries, but I’m happy to report that he will now happily eat a large serving of green beans, peas, broccoli, salad, and many other vegetables that we never thought he would eat!
Behavior
Lucas has always been my more compliant child. He says “yes, mommy” when I call his name almost every single time. He will come to me when I ask him to, and he will comply with any instruction I give. I started my first-time obedience training from day one, and it’s paid off. I remember a time when he was about 2 years old. I had to meet with William’s teacher for a conference, but couldn’t get a sitter. I brought his “blanket time” blanket and a few toys, and he sat quietly during the whole conference. He stood up one time and immediately sat back down when I told him to.
And recently, I allowed them to watch TV without cleaning up first, since there were just a couple toys on the floor. Apparently Lucas is a bit of a neat-freak because he couldn’t sit down without putting them away!
We also experienced a few years of bliss with Lucas being the peace-keeper in the family. He always did what we asked, and always gave William whatever he wanted. Sadly, all great things must come to an end. Lucas began to assert himself a couple months ago. So for the first time ever, we’re dealing with sibling rivalry. In some ways, I’m happy to see him stand up for himself. And it’s sometimes nice that he puts William in his place. But boy, I do miss those days!
Play
As with William, I continue to place a high premium on play. I make sure there is plenty of time in their day for free play. Legos tend to consume Lucas’ free play time as well. There are many times that I think we don’t need any other toys. They all collect dust while the Legos remain spread out over the playroom floor! We also make time to play outside and take walks or go for bike rides.
Interests
Lucas’ interests have yet to fully emerge. Of my two boys, he is my sporty kid. William is great on his bike, but nothing else seems to interest him. Interestingly enough, Lucas struggles on the bike, but loves any sport with a ball. We are using a balance bike approach to teach him to ride a bike. We simply took the pedals and training wheels off his little 12″ bike. It worked well for William. Lucas is a cautious child by nature; we learned this when he didn’t start walking until he was 20 months old! So whenever the bike would slightly tip, he would freak out. Luckily, he’s finally gotten over this — and his legs have gotten longer (such a peanut he is!) — that he can happily ride. I’m guessing that next summer we’ll be able to put the pedals back on.
Aside from the bike, Lucas is great with many sports. He took a Sports Sampler class offered by our local parks and recreation department, and he loved it so much, we did three sessions last year. He learned to play soccer, T-ball, and basketball. It’s a shame he’s too young for football because that boy could throw a perfect spiral when he was three! The jury is still out on whether he’s academically gifted, but his crazy ability to throw a ball is certainly a gift!