Score!

I know these MAP assessments often don’t mean much for a variety of reasons, but the fact remains that they are one tool to assess a child’s school performance, so I just wanted to record The Big Sis’ winter MAP scores here for future reference:

Reading: 194 (above 2nd grade level)

Math: 205 (above 3rd grade level)

Wordless Wednesday: Monkey see, monkey do

Teefers and exams

The Big Sis lost tooth #5 last night (upper right lateral incisor). She keeps asking the tooth fairy to give her some pixie dust so she can fly for two weeks. Not quite sure what to do about that — find a place that will let kids her age/size zipline? So far we’ve deflected the request well enough, but at some point that’s not going to work anymore.

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The Little Sis had her 2 1/2-year checkup today, and all went well. Her last couple of visits to the doctor have started with tears as soon as she crossed the threshold to go to the back area, so I wanted to try to prepare her ahead of time. We talked the night before about how she’d have to go to the doctor, and what they’d do there. Last time, she wanted nothing to do with the scale, then they had to weigh her on the baby scale, which was even worse, so I really wanted to get her to cooperate with the standing scale. It took some coaxing, and she still wouldn’t let go of my hand, but the nurse was patient with us and she finally stepped on enough to where they got a weight they were happy with. She wouldn’t stand up against the wall to have her height measured, so they had to do that on the paper on the table, but she did well with it, surprisingly. (Usually laying down on the exam table brings about even bigger tears.)

So, the stats:

Height: 37.75 inches (greater than 98th percentile)

Weight: 32.5 pounds (95th to 98th percentile)

Head circumference: 19.5 inches (95th to 98th percentile)

I asked The Pediatrician if there’s a point at which we’re concerned her being on the higher end of the percentiles, but he answered just as I expected, saying that as long as her measurements are proportional, then there is no concern. He said that of course there’s no way to truly predict her adult height, but he wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up being 5’10” tall as an adult, which is hilarious coming from two shorter parents!

She passed her milestone questions easily:

*Can your child jump?

*Can your child point to six body parts when asked?

*Can your child put on any clothing herself?

*Does your child play pretend with toys?

*Do you think others can understand half of what your child says?

*Can your child tell you the sounds animals make?

Her physical exam went well, both from the doctor’s point of view and from hers. I could tell she wanted to get upset when he was doing the exam, but she put on her brave face and made it through, receiving the reward of TWO stickers at checkout. (Though, I forgot to get them when we checked out, and we got downstairs and I realized but didn’t want to go back up again. I hoped she’d forget, but of course she didn’t, so we went back up to get them. And I wasn’t a bit annoyed at having to do that given how HAPPY it made her.)

I took her to daycare after we left the doctor, and for about half of the 15-minute drive, she kept saying, “I wanna go back to doctor! I wanna go back to doctor!” Then, when I picked her up at daycare after work, she kept getting upset and saying that she wanted to go back to the doctor instead of going home. I kept trying to tell her that we’d already BEEN to the doctor, and that he was at home now and not there, but finally I had to “agree” to her request — telling her that yes, we’d go to the doctor … when she turns 3! 🙂

On the one hand, it was frustrating having to console her about going to the doctor, but it was much better to hear that instead of her getting upset about going there, as has been the case before. We have been so fortunate with her to have minimal trips to the doctor, and I do not take that for granted one bit!

First film!

A few weeks ago, we were looking for something to do as a family, and after much discussion, we decided to take a risk and take The Little Sis to her first theater movie. The Big Sis went to her first theater movie when she was between 2 1/2 and 3, so this would have us doing it a little earlier for The Little Sis, but overall we thought it would go well. And overall, we were indeed right. We went to the dollar theater so if we had to bail, we weren’t out a lot of money. We loaded up on snacks, snagged seats in the back row on the side, and hoped for the best.

Really, the only “problem” we had was that The Little Sis is currently going through a phase where she narrates EVERYTHING. So she’d say — just slightly too loud — “Look, it’s a monkey! He’s silly,” for example. So while not awful, I’m sure it was distracting to those who were closest to us (though we really didn’t have anyone super close to us, part of the reason we chose to sit in the back). Toward the end, The Little Sis started to get a little wiggly, but for the most part, she did really well sitting in her seat between the wall and The Big Sis.

Oh, and for the record, her first movie was Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2.

The Big Sis’ first movie? The original Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. 🙂