Apple's Last Day of Pretty-School

Apple's last day of Pretty-School was on Friday.  I was pretty sad about it.  Her teachers were amazing.  The way they taught things just really made them stick and Apple would walk around using big words like "precipitation" and "transportation" and "chrysalis" and knew the functions of the iris and pupil.  They also taught them to floss in a way that she still reminds me of it every day.  Amazing.  Thank you Mrs. Heather and Mrs. Joanne!

My little angel has changed a lot over the past year.  She has really grown up a lot.  It makes me tear up a little.  But she's totally still my goofy little girl and I love it!

I gave her a little test the other day to see if she really could write the whole alphabet.  The only one she couldn't remember was "D."  I even did the alphabet backwards to make sure she wasn't getting clues from the other letters.  She is always writing notes now.  She still has no idea how to read and usually just puts a bunch of letters together, but it is still a lot further along than Strawberry was at the same age.  Strawberry didn't get to go to preschool though.  She did go to daycare twice a week, but it was a lady that did it in her home and she had 5 kids total and didn't really do that much educational stuff.  Just art projects.  I tried teaching her, but like I've said before, my kids don't learn well from me.  I am going to try to change that this summer though.  I have big plans for keeping the kids educated.  I even got this big whiteboard and I'm making lots of magnet games.  Let's hope it works out and they don't just sit in front of the Wii all summer.  :]

That was a message to Daddy from Apple.  :)  The other day we were at a friend's house and Apple climbed up on the back of the sofa.  It startled me a little and I told her to get down and Strawberry said, "She does it all the time at home when you aren't looking."  Oh great.  I'm actually of the mindset of "let the kids climb and jump all over the furniture; we'll get nice stuff when they're grown."  It drives Luke a little crazy, but bed jumping doesn't bother me.  And didn't everyone play the "Lava" game where you couldn't touch the ground or you'd get burned up and had to throw all the cushions on the floor and jump all over everything?  Plus, I used to do "gymnastics" on my parents' bed.  It was bigger and so I was less likely to break my neck than if I did it on my bed (sorry Mom and Dad).  Our bed has a fancy iron frame so our kids can't do that.  But anyway, what was my point?  Oh, yeah.  A couple of days later, Apple climbed up and did it on our couch while I was looking and I guess the reason it startled me is that she is so little and doesn't seem big enough to be climbing all over everything yet.  I'm just not used to thinking about her being old enough to do stuff like this.  This little girl totally messes with my perceptions.  It was so different with Strawberry because she was always old enough to do everything and I was letting her do more than I should have.  I guess that is the oldest kid syndrome.  Poor Apple totally has the middle kid problems.  She is neglected.  I've been struggling with giving enough time and attention to Strawberry and Mango because I felt like if I was focusing on one, I was neglecting the other.  And I wondered why it wasn't changing the attention I give Apple, and I realized, it's because I'm always neglecting her.  Oh man.  She just doesn't demand it like the other two do.  She's just wander off and find something for herself to do.  She can play for hours by herself.  I was the middle kid too, but I was also the first girl after two boys, so I sort of got both the oldest kid and middle kid deals.  Parenting is so complicated!!