The three Rs

Reading -

I think Kennedy's been read to almost every single day of her life. And those few days we weren't able to read to her, well, they have easily been made up for by the days that we go through big stacks of books! Jake feels like he doesn't have a great appreciation for reading because he didn't do much of it as a kid. Maybe we're trying to overcompensate, but reading is important, and we want them to really love to read - for fun, not just because they have to.

Kennedy is starting to read a bit on her own now. Yesterday Pamp would type some words on the computer for her to read. She got MOM, DAD, CAT, DOG, COW, ZOO and HA HA (apparently she asked him to write this one.) Then she would take a turn typing the words. She knows all the letter sounds, and loves to play a game where we think of a letter, make its sound, and then take turns thinking of words that start with that letter. She amazed me about a week ago by saying, "The letter C sometimes makes the "K" sound and sometimes the "S" sound." So we thought of examples, like cake and cinnamon.

Writing -

Yesterday the girls both took a late afternoon nap after we'd come home from swimming. Waking up at 6:00 pm just threw their normal 8:30 bedtime right out the window. After dinner Kennedy and I went to the library, while Jake gave Macy a bath (she was covered in re- fried black beans, but we're just happy that she's expanding her bread-products-and-baby-food-only diet.) Kennedy wanted to sit down and color and let me pick out the books this time. She drew a beautiful picture of grass and flowers, and then added the first three letters of her name: K-E-N. I was holding back tears of joy. Seriously, I was so excited and just about bowled over with wonder at her accomplishment.

This morning she wrote the whole thing all by herself, all seven letters.

Arithmetic -

Kennedy loves to count things. She can consistently get to 30, but most of the time she forgets 17, and sometimes 30 is "twenty-ten." She loves to sort and group things. She'll endlessly arrange the animal magnets on the fridge - by color, by whether they live on the farm or at the zoo, by size... The other day she said, "How old will Macy be when I'm three?" I replied, "Well, Macy is one and you are three. You are two years older than she is." So I asked her, "How old will you be when Macy is three?" She thought for just a minute, and then answered, "Five."

***A disclaimer for anyone reading this***

I'm just trying to record Kennedy's development. I know my faulty memory, and if I don't write it down, I won't be able to remember all these details. Really, this isn't bragging about my fantastic, amazing, wonderful, brilliant, thoughtful, adorable, and not yet even three and a half-year-old ;)