From time to time I have moments of: Am I teaching my children the right things? Are they missing out on something? Should I be teaching more? Expecting more of them?
And then these type of things happen:
I was worried that I wasn't doing enough Maths with Jen. Or rather, that I'm not doing any Maths curriculum with her. We read books, discuss numbers if we see them, play games, talk about how we use numbers as they come up in our daily lives, but we've never sat down to formally DO maths.
We've always had magnetic numbers and letters on the fridge in our kitchen. She has used these in the past to build words and numbers. She's played with the numbers putting them in order and asked about the + - and = symbols too.
So the other day when she asked me again what the + was and I explained it to her saying it's plus, add on or when you get more and you use it to write number sentences when you're working out a sum.
She then proceeded to put together her own sum and work out the answer! WOW! You surprise me everyday little girl!
After playing with a few below 10 sums she then proceeded to make another one. This time it was a "difficult" one going over the 10 boundary. My immediate reaction was: Ooops, here comes a challenge too much for her! What will she do when she turns to me asking if it's right and I say no?
I tried to step in and help, but she stopped me: No mom, wait! Then turned around to work it out by counting on her fingers so I couldn't see her secret way of getting all her previous answers. And then.....
she did it!
I know it's not a page of sums. And it's a once off-she hasn't played with the magnets again-but it helps me not to be concerned about rushing out to buy those maths readiness books I was thinking of buying to ease my guilt of not doing enough in the maths area.... she still has a few more years to play dress up and explore her world ;-)
Sometimes we can take a little credit for the progress our children make. But there are times when I have very little part to play in new developments in my children's lives. Michael turned 3 in February. By 3 Jenna was out of nappies in the day and wanting desperately to be dry at night too. She was very eager to be a big girl wearing special big girl underwear. I thought that Michael would be the same but by 3 he was showing very little interest in the toilet or wearing those big boy underpants I'd bought him! That is until his sister offered to dress him one morning. She convinced him to put on his "panties" with ease and on we went with our day. In a blink of an eye he was using the toilet and wearing underwear! (Ok, there were a few accidents but not many)
Then to tackle the next milestone... dry nights. Once again I had no part to play in this one! I had had enough of wet beds and being woken at night by my little man when his nappy wasn't sufficient enough! Many a nights I asked the Lord to help me figure out how to stop the bed wetting WHEN he was wearing nappies! Aren't they supposed to keep them dry?!
Well, one night when I had left for exercise class and Ray was putting Michael to bed, he didn't want to put a nappy on. The next morning we had a dry bed!!! With that the nappies at night have gone and my prayers of when, have been answered.
Nothing gets done according to my plans around here! ;-) I'm learning that things will happen, if I wait patiently, in His timing for them!
