Write from the start

Kait discovers the joy of doodling...
These pictures are from last month, three days after she turned 1, in the parents' room of the church we're attending. She'll be 13 months old come Sunday.

And it was really funny, before that, when she already showed an interest in doodling, running off with my cellphone and using her index finger to make those swirly and draggy movements on it. The way she'd seen the brothers do that on their dad's phone; they can never get enough of those games that are great for erm boosting their finger-eye coordination. The little girl is at the watch-and-learn stage, pretty quick in grasping the meaning and function of more things now. E.g. she grabs a toy drum and places it next to the stool, then goes sit on the drum (meaning: my drum can be a stool, too), though sometimes, I don't know whether to laugh or cry!

Since then, Kait's also got a better grip of the spoon, and now must feed herself. Except she'll squish the peas, and scoop out all the meat, only to catapult them to the floor, and maybe she'll at least eat the macaroni. On a good day when the food or the bowl isn't flying, I have a better chance of gradually transiting her to our more "grown-up" food, without having to separate out hers or cook it separately. A basic seasoning like salt and pepper with olive oil makes for some nice oven-roasted chicken for her, without trying to overwhelm her yet with too much flavour, and still holding off stuff that's not eczema-friendly. The same old tricks in the kitchen I used with two kids before, I continue to rely on them, including cooking more for dinner to roll over to lunch, to save some food preparation time during these busier back-to-school days.

But while the boys are quick to place their "orders" with me for what they want to eat, or pack to go (for lunch, for Jon who eats his in school), they are slower to warm up to writing (for Ben; trying to encourage him to write his lowercase letters through fun ways) and more homework again (for Jon). There are, of course, also all the other basic things needing "training" and "re-training". And now, just to share what I learned from another mom, I'm trying this out as a consequence with the boys: writing sentences.

Some of our moms and teachers might have asked us to write lines when we were little, too, but I've not done it with Jon and Ben until now. There's the additional benefit of it being good practice for handwriting. But does it work?

Today itself, Ben has written (5 lines each):
I will listen.
I will not throw.

Jon, humoring me, followed suit and wrote in his "best ever" handwriting:
I will obey mom.

He was supposed to have written:
I will not climb the banister to scale the wall.
I will not slam-dunk in the house (because I will break a hole in the floor and fall right through).

Frankly, I don't know if I'll have the patience to keep this up. But thinking instead of "I will not", maybe the sentences could have a more positive ring? E.g. write "I will take good care of our things" rather than "I will not throw our things around", unless it's super important to be specific about what NOT to do.

Anyway, if you've done this or will be trying it out, tell me about it! The things we try and grin and bear it. Glad it's Friday already, and Vern was back much quicker this time after his out-of-town trip earlier in the week.