My Little Monkey

Well, Katie has always been a little jumping bean and has started running and hopping everywhere but now she has added climbing everything to her repertoire. For the last week at daycare she has climbed out of the pack-n-play she sleeps in and has proceeded to wander around the room moving the diapers around and trying to wake up her roommates. Today, though, she scared Pam silly when she climbed out and climbed up the bunkbed ladder. When Pam came in to check on her she was at the top of the ladder and was so startled to be caught that she fell down them. She was ok, but we really have to find a way to get her to take a nap and stop being such a busybody. When they move to a new daycare (haven't found one yet) she will have to sleep on a mat so we might try to go ahead and "train" her to lay down and sleep without being caged in. That will involve sitting beside her and keeping her there, I am sure - oh fun. About as much fun as the trip to Florida is sure to be. The actual visit with my mom and on Girl's weekend WILL be fun, it's just the 8 hour trip with children who hate carseats that I am dreading!!!

We went on a tour of a daycare/preschool yesterday and it was great. I know that they would love it - lots of playtime, structured art and music activities, water fun and sandtables, etc. It is the "cheapest" one we have found but will still cost $1500 a month - outrageous!!! I know a school environment would be great for them, but I just don't know if it is worth that. So far it is our only option, but hopefully I will find something else soon and can really weigh pros and cons better. One thing that did come up on the tour was the question of what class they should be in . Because of their birthday we have to decide if we start them in K when they just turned 5 or just turned 6. That applies to pre-school too - in all of the places I have looked. We can either keep them in the oldest toddlers class and they would be the oldest ones or put them in the 2s class right when they turn two. That is a hard decision because they are both small for their size and not doing some things that they should when they are 2 like drink from open cups, nap on mats, eat with utensils, etc. But, one of the classes we sat in on was the older toddler class and the kids do seem a little ahead of them - just in small things like they were learning all of their body parts (which the kids have known for a while) and they still had cube chairs instead of real chairs and this is at the end of their year when they will be in the 2's class this Fall that they are just now learning this. Plus, the kids did seem just a little older than most of them. However, they were a lot smaller than the kid's in the 2's (about to be three) class that we looked at and those kids were following directions a lot better than K&T! Decisions, decisions - and really time to start getting them to use those spoons and forks and plates!