Fall Parent-Teacher Conference

This morning, I had Anya's Fall parent-teacher conference. She's doing well developmentally and enjoys going to school. The director and her teacher think the transition to Kindergarten in the Fall will be seamless (I, on the other hand, will be a blubbering mess). I guess the only thing that surprised me a bit was regarding her social-emotional development. They said she is highly advanced in how she deals with other kids, especially when problems arise. That she can always articulate her feelings and ask for what she wants or try to work toward a solution (example they gave: "You hurt my feelings when you xxx. I'd like you to apologize."). I have to say, as her mom, I don't see this behavior all that often. Yes, she can tell us what she's feeling, but she doesn't often deal well with the problem in the moment (usually, later on after she's vented emotionally for a bit). Perhaps we can attribute it to her feeling comfortable enough to let go and break down when she's at home.

We spoke a little bit about Kindergarten and our options. They believe (as do we) that Anya is adaptable and will likely be "fine" whichever school we choose. Chris and I decided recently to give public school a try. If it doesn't meet her needs, then we will look again into private. There was one private school in particular that we love. Unfortunately, it's over $16k per year...while public school is free(ish). We are down to two schools on our list and I'm sure I'll agonize over that decision all Spring, since that's how I roll.

Anyway, here's the conference write-up. Grandparents, click on the image to view a larger version.

5 year update

I'm a bit behind in posting the now-yearly kid status update. We've had a very busy few weeks with birthday, Halloween festivities, birthday party, and then trip to Disneyland. It's nice to take a breather.

Anyway, 5. We went for Anya's well-child visit today. She's doing great. Doc says she should drink more milk (I disagree and think her calcium intake is just fine without 3 cups of milk. I didn't feel like an argument, so I smiled and nodded). She took her vaccines very bravely, so we went to Menchie's Yogurt (a recommended source of calcium!) as a treat for being so well-behaved for the visit.

Weight: 38 lbs (25-50%)
Height: 42.25 inches (25-50%)
BMI: 14.97 (25-50%)
BP:93/59, HR:94
Vision 20/25 both eyes; hearing: pass

General Interests
This seems to be the Year of the Dragon (last year was year of Rapunzel, before that Little Mermaid, and before that, Jungle Book). She's really been into dragons ever since she watched How to Train Your Dragon. Imaginative play often involved dragons, she was one for Halloween, has a stuffed one, etc.

Besides dragons, Anya still like cats. That creeps up in imaginative play often as well (Monster vs Cat is still a common game of pretend she makes us play). Faeries are still popular. Any animals, both real and stuffed.

Anya likes science in general. She's mostly into zoology and natural sciences...but really, it all interests her. She just got a kitchen science kit for her birthday this afternoon and went nutso over it.

Not surprisingly, she still has a love for gymnastics. Recently, she was moved to the advanced group. She fits in well skill-wise and is happy. It's something she looks forward to every week. She's fantastic on the balance beam. She's also strong on the bars - such upper body and core strength and can easily do anything the teacher asks of her. Best of all, she's having a blast.

Skills Development
Reading is going well. She's sometimes very interested in it; other times, not at all. We're still trying not to put any pressure on her to read. It has been something extra on her reward chart this year -- 15 words and she can earn a bonus star. Chris and I talked about it and are going to stop doing that...it might still be a form of pressure and we want reading to be enjoyable for her. She can read any short to medium, uncomplicated words. She's also learned a few sight words, just from coming across them enough times. Today I noticed a little developmental jump. We were at a coffee shop and there was a semi-transparent sign facing the parking lot. She noticed it from inside and read the words, even though they were backward.

Anya can count to 100 (has been able to for a little while I think). Yesterday, we were counting cards and, on her own, she started counting them by two's. She also counts by tens. And there's some rudimentary math she gets.

Misc.
Anya's final year of preschool is going well. We just decided to knock her down to 3 mornings at Sweet Pea Cottage instead of 4. 4 seemed like too much. She was acting possibly over-scheduled, plus this is my last year to be at home with her before Kindergarten. I want more Anya-Mom fun days. Besides Sweet Pea, she has been going Monday and Fridays for 2 hours at Roaring Mouse "Artists of the Heart" program. It's a class for kids entering Kindergarten next fall. It focuses on interpersonal readiness for elementary school. She loves it. And it's across the street from our house - bonus!

Anya's current favorite friends: Eva, Eloise, Natalie at school (although they fight often and their friendship is on and off), Ella F., Avi, Max (Carol and Shelly's grandson), Izzy, and Noelle.

A while ago we started giving her an allowance to teach her about money and trade offs etc.  She gets a dollar for every year, so now she gets $5 per week.  We use this when she wants something we don't want to or do think we should buy for her.  "Well you have your allowance honey..." This has made her a. stop bugging us for things b. forced her to make trade offs which will hopefully pay off for her in the future.  She's taken to it very well and seems genuinely please with the sense of empowerment it gives her. 

Still a good eater.  Not much to say here.  She's not as adventurous as she once was, but compared to most of her friends she's very easy to deal with at meal times.

One of the most interesting things about Anya is her well developed sense of reality.  She always seems to know when things are real or imaginary. For example at Disney last week, she didn't even bother meeting any of the characters because, as she put it, "they're just people dressed like the characters".  My favorite moment of realism/fantasy mix was while waiting in line at the Disney haunted house. There was a grave stone with a cat on it. With no previous discussion, she asked "Is there a pretend dead cat buried under there?" Like she new it wasn't real, but that it was a cat's grave, and that pretend cats would likely be buried under pretend grave stones. 

Anya's Suprise Trip to Disney Land

For Anya's 5th birthday, Grandma and Grandpa got a World Mark Condo in Anaheim, and we all went to Disney Land (thanks to a friend for generously gifting us some tickets to the park). Having been tricked by YouTube videos of tearfully surprised children (which I'm now certain were disseminated by Disney itself) Amy and I decided to surprise Anya and record it. 

Having tried to surprise Amy once before her coffee (the day I proposed to her) I should have been prepared for Anya's reaction to waking up early and having to deal with the "cleverness" of others.  In short the Miller/Lodwig girls don't take kindly to early morning surprises. 

Here is us breaking the news of our imminent Disney voyage to Anya. Note that she wants to go to school instead, despite the fact that it's not even a school day.



Moments after I stopped filming Anya began screaming and yelling that she didn't want to go.  She hid behind the couch and took off her shoes and threw them. 

We had to physically carry her in her PJs to the car and strap her down.  Her tantrum woke up our neighbors on both sides (and likely others we don't know of).

She abruptly stopped freaking out when she saw the Space Needle.  That moment sounded exactly like this: "WAAAaahhahaaa AahahahaA...Hey look there's the Wheedle and the Needle!"

After a brief discussion as to whether all red lights on all buildings were each a member of a vast wheedle herd (her theory not ours)  she was magically better. 

Here she is enjoying one of her favorite parts of any trip.



And Grandma and Grandpa Lodwig couldn't be left out of the awesome, "Let's surprise Anya" action.  And decided to surprise her at the Anaheim airport.  Anya is duly impressed as you can see.


It's funny how many people have a similar story.  Both Amy and I have told our parents that we didn't want to go to Disney Land (Brian and I wanted to stay on at Lincoln City Oregon, Amy wanted to keep hanging out at her grand parent's place).  I think Disney really means more to us than to the kids. 

That being said, the trip itself was great.

Anya was a total champ.  She never begged for anything, she didn't even spend all of her allowance.
She was charming to everyone we met.  And she genuinely seemed to enjoy herself and she really wants to go back soon.

Now that she's home she's been telling folks that her favorite things were the Dumbo ride, And the Jungle River Cruise.  She also walks around singing "In the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki room, In the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki room..."
 

Day #2 Disney

Today was day two at Disney. We went to Disney Land proper. Today we took a risk and decided not to come home in the middle of the day for lunch and chill time.
Worked great. Anya nearly fell asleep during the Enchanted Tiki Hut, but other than that it was great.
Anya's favorites today:

• Dumbo ride. She liked that she could make it go up and down
• The Tarzan Tree House. She ran through that twice and would have kept doing it if we didn't talk her out of it.
• Pirates of the Caribbean. It scared her and she demanded we do it again the moment it was over.

My vote for things she will remember forever:

• Chasing ducks. A lady gave her a bunch of Cheerios to lure the ducks in. This was a proud moment for me, because another girl was there, and she gave the girl a handful of cheerios with out the girl even asking. 
• A lizard she saw on a topiary horse outside of Small World, she asked me to catch it so we could bring it home.
• The Pinocchio ride. The Pinocchio ride didn't seem to effect her at all today, but I'm telling you it was terrifying, and she'll require therapy for some nebulous reason down the line.
• The Giant Door leading out of Toon Town She was very interested in this door and she herself theorized it probably lead to the dump. She really wanted to see the dump.

Door to the Toon Town Dump.

 

Anya on yet another Carousel

 

Anya and Grandpa getting onto "It's a Small World"

 

Anya takes the castle

 

Can't contain herself

 

Anya's favorite ride, Dumbo.

 

Day 1 at Disney Land

Today was our first of two days at Disney Land. Actually today we were at California adventure. It rained the second half of the day, but that didn't slow a bunch of Seattlites down.

Things Anya loved:
Areal's Under Sea Adventure. We went on that twice. It was surprisingly cool, and we all liked it too.
Toy Story Mania was also visited twice. Dad was victorious on that one. Very cool ride/game.
The Aladdin show was very cool, singing and dancing and puppet elephants and camels. 
The giant Farris Wheel would have been cool except it was raining and windy while we were up there.
The Tuck and Roll (Bug's Life) bumper cars were lame. Anya is currently sitting on the floor telling grandpa how awesome the Heimlich Snack Train was. In her mind it is already much more exciting than it actually was.

Anya and a new friend climb the light pole while waiting for the bus to Disney Land

 

Anya on one of her favorites, a carousel (this was the King Triton Carousel)

 

Inside Arial's Undersea Adventure

 

Look up at Mikey's big Wheel of Fun or what ever it was called.

Anya the dragon

Amy made this! Anya is toothless the dragon from How to Train Your Dragon. Mom and Dad were Vikings which Amy also made.