Girlie Post

I've been meaning to post for a long time now.  One day we're going to find that there's a lot less about Mirei and Leina's early years than Taisei.  It's no surprise that we're just a LOT busier now with 3 kids than we were when Taisei was the only one.  Most of this documentation is turning out to be just for us now, especially on Abajoo!  It might be time to go private.  Does anyone read this and would like to stay on the list?  Let me know and I'll invite you.  I'll leave it open for a while longer


Mirei started preschool this year.  She actually did a year of Japanese class with a 1-year older group last year when Wami was teaching.  So Mirei was 3 and she was in the 4 year old class.  This year, she's re-taking that Japanese class and it's lame-ly easy for her.  Oh well.  So now she's going to the Japanese school (1x per week) as well as Expanding Horizons twice a week.  Today we had a parent teacher conference.  (Pretty funny the do that in preschool.)  They were great.  Gave me lots of details on Mirei (which they pronounce mih-RAY).  I figured that would eventually happen.  Here were the teachers thoughts:

• "She LOVES arts and crafts.  She chooses to do that every day."
• "She's an amazing artist.  Draws with incredible detail and accuracy."  There's a profile of mama that she drew, and I have to admit that it's pretty good.  Other kids are still just scribbling on paper.  Mirei's had eyelashes, lips, pupils, etc.  Maybe she got some of the Lin genes.  :)
• "She loves the sensory table, where they have sand, water, or other things to play with."
• "She's generally quiet, but when she starts talking, she talks a great deal."
• "Her English is so good."  Duh.  I'm not sure if they're saying that it's good as a second language, or it's just good in general.  We already know that she's a very good communicator and understands things well beyond her age.  They noticed that as well about her understanding.
• I told them that sometimes she doesn't want to go in the morning, but then afterwards she explains that she was tired and just wanted to make a big deal about it.  She understands that, and the teacher was amazed that she could express that to me.  The teacher says Mirei has always been fine in class.
• "She knows the ABCs better than anyone else in the class."  Thanks to Starfall, we haven't done a thing.  haha  There's a good chance she could be reading before next  summer, I believe.  We won't push her, but we'll see.
• "She doesn't initial social interactions with her classmates, so that's one thing they want to work on with her.  See if she can play with her classmates a little more."  My guess is that she feels like she's much older.  She has no problem talking down to River, who's 7 now.  haha

Big happy birthday to Mirei. She just turned 4!

Leina is now the age that Mirei was at when Leina was born.  It's hard to believe our kids are growing up so fast.  Leina definitely knows what's going on now and it's snuck up on us.  We kind of hoped she'd stay a baby forever.  Right now she is at the super super cute age where she has strong opinions, can't talk well, but likes to make her presence known.  She has a few funny habits:

• She likes to put things down her one-piece.  Grapes, small toys, my phone, whatever. When she first started doing it, we would sometimes think her diaper had malfunction.  Still not sure why she does it.  Sometimes she'll put it down our shirts as well.
• She loves her gauze blankets and always wants to hold those when she wakes up for a nap or is feeling grumpy.
• She looooves to hold a bottle of nail polish in her hand.  When she's doing things in the house, when she's getting in the car, when she's taking a nap - she always wants to hold one.  It scares us because it's glass, but she hasn't broken one yet.  We just don't know how many bottles she's probably lost already.
• She WON'T sit in her high chair.  She pretty much never has.  Looks like she never will.  Mirei wasn't that bad about her high chair, though she fell out of it probably 3 or 4 times.  Mirei's deal was not being willing to sleep in the crib.
• She spends all day looking for candy.  She goes through everybody's bags and eventually is able to find something.  She's pretty much addicted to candy.  She would eat nothing but candy all day if we let her.  Scary.
• She LOVES natto rice.  That's pretty much the only thing we can get her to eat consistently.  Anything else, and it's a crap shoot.  When we went to southern Utah over UEA weekend, Wami froze rice and natto.  Luckily she did, because that's all she would eat.  That, beef jerky, and candy.
• She sleeps all night.  She has rarely ever woken up in the middle of the night.  Maybe once or twice in the past year, and even when she was a baby she rarely woke up.  Woohoo!  The kids are all sleeping at night!  What a big milestone, now that I think about it.
• Also, she likes to sleep.  When she gets tired, she asks to go to bed, usually around 8 or so, she's ready to go to bed.  She does the same thing in the day for naps.  Probably is, she insists on her mama taking her to bed.  We'll have to break that habit to give Wami a break.

The other two girls in my life.

I think there's more to update you on, but I have to take a break now. Gotta get back into this blogging thing gently.  ;)  Let me know if you want to go private with us.  There's probably like 3 of you reading this.

ps.  Uh-oh, I didn't realize that our template got broken.  Gotta decide if it's time to go to the new blogger format...