First Preschool: Joy School for Jessica

Although Jessica was only 2 1/2 by the fall of 2012, my friend invited us to join a preschool-at-home group for 3-year olds in our ward. It wasn't expensive, and was only 2 half-days a week, and I wasn't about to turn down the chance for several hours of free time. Here we are on the first day:

Plus, it was the same Joy School curriculum I had learned as a kid, which brought back sweet memories to me. The material is quaint, but with a few tweaks it was really fun to teach. It emphasizes happiness and gratitude, and age-appropriate hands-on activities over pure academics.

Our units were joy of my body, the earth, honesty, sharing, order, goals, obedience, humor, trust, confidence, imagination, and family. We started the lesson sitting in a semi-circle to do the weather & date, stories, songs, and show & tell object starting with the letter of the week.

Super Hero Me day, from "Joy of Confidence" day is pictured here. (I love that Jessica chose to borrow a Batman mask over Supergirl outfit, which looks even funnier with her girly clothes.)

I took this picture after the obstacle course activity for "Joy of the Body". Too bad Jessica was being a pill; it just happened that 3 kids wore red and two wore purple, so I was trying to get a symmetrical shot. Kids pull the funniest faces...

Our "faith fall" (let your friends catch you falling backwards) during the "Joy of Trust & Confidence" unit morphed into 20 minutes of "Cowabunga!" during playtime.

There was 20-30 minutes of playtime scheduled into the beginning, middle, and end of the 3 hour block, so it wasn't too intense for little kids (or the teacher!)

The kids were so fun to get to know; each one had their talents that surprised and delighted me. Here Ian, Mr. Hands-On, helped me make "fried snowflakes" for a snack, and Julia sang "I Am a Child of God" perfectly, for our "confidence" talent show.

Joy School lesson songs are clever, but sometimes wordy. So most of the time I only taught them a few keywords or actions. This song (during "Joy of Service and Sharing" in December) I just sang to them as I wrapped each of them, laughing, in Christmas paper: 

I Have a perfect present

To give to someone true,

To make us all feel hap-happy--

I'll give myself to you!

Just wrap me in some paper, 

And tie me in a bow.

Be sure I'm covered head to foot

So wiggly ears won't show.

Then give me to whomever 

Should need some love today.

You'll have the Perfect present when

I give myself away!

Arms can hug you tightly,

And feet can errands run.

A song to sing or story tell,

Before the day is done.

During that week, we also played secret service elves, and cleaned up the neighbor's backyard.

We also taught holidays and seasons. At our house, each kid took turns doing each part of a Nativity play, which I narrated and directed at lightening speed to keep up with their 2-minute attention spans. If you look closely, you can see that Jessica, as a wiseman, brought a gold Liahona, body spray, and red pepper flakes as gifts to baby Jesus.

Since there were 9 kids in Joy School, we split into two groups. But we joined together for holiday parties at Halloween and Valentine's.

Our group includes Jessica & I; ladybug Julia on Kristina's lap; Melissa behind Kristina and her mom Emily top-right; Buzz Lightyear Ian and his mom Jessica (taking the picture); and Tanner the tiger and his mom Lauren in black.

The other moms in my group were so great to work with. Thanks Lauren Malone, Jessica Shorter, Kristina Randolph, and Emily Bingham! I loved chatting them twice a week. Jessica loved Joy School and her friends, and was always happy to attend. Frequently, after it was over, and I was finished talking to the other moms, I had to go find her (like below hiding in her friend's closet) and drag her away.

Thanks for all the great memories!

Growing Up

Jessica is now 16 months old. Her 15-month check-up put her at 97th percentile (above all the lines on the growth chart) for height at 33" long and weight at 28 pounds. I'm glad she's lengthening out, and she can walk--we can only carry her so far.

It's a good baby life Jessica leads. Here's a look at what she does in between the big events in life. We're very impatient to teach her everything and for her to speak, draw, climb, obey, and play with us. But it amazes me how many small things there are to teach.

Dave was craving ice cream one night, and bought Blue Bell mini ice cream sandwiches. J ate half of one after dinner for four days straight. Did you know you have to teach a child to lick their fingers?

Before Easter I made sugar cookies with Jessica. I thought she would enjoy punching them out, but she just wanted to eat dough. She couldn't lick much cookie dough off the beater either. I should have taught her to suck and bite the beater. So much to learn.

Jessica loves to chew on her rubber baby toothbrush ("Don't throw your toothbrush in the trash" After 6 instructions, she can put it back on the bathroom counter.) She puts our shoes on her hands, and now, on her feet, by herself. She unloads the desk drawer; puts my hair bands on her wrists like bracelets ("No, hairbrushes are for your head; bottlebrushes are for...cleaning stuffed animals' ears"). She rearranges the pantry onto the floor, spreads toys around the house; hangs on my arm for attention ("Say 'mommy', don't pinch me.") when I'm trying to work on my computer; plays the piano; hugs, straddles, hits, pets, laughs at the cat and sticks her fingers in his ears; pulls blankets from her crib; pulls her diaper bag contents into her crib; unzips my piano teacher pencil bag and opens the markers; asks for help to get "ut! uh! uh!" (up) on everything; opens my purse to play with my cards; is underfoot while I do my make-up, make dinner, and fold laundry;

and treats lots of things like cell phones and jabbers away on them. She actually called Dave's mom twice in a row one day and talked to her, right under my nose. Another day she called my mom's cell phone, and when it didn't pick up, called her house phone, to talk with that Grandma for a while. (They are both on speed dial.)

She's used my phone to take pictures. (This photo, I believe, was on the drive to the Orlando temple one day.)

When Dave left for his week-long rafting trip, I was worried about having enough to do to keep her sane. Dave takes over after work and plays with her while I make dinner, teach lessons, or just get some alone time.

Every day we left the house; but when we were stuck at home, we painted her toenails for the first time (for which she was very serious and still): 

played with glow-in-the-dark bracelets:

and drew on the sidewalk with chalk and the windows with window markers.

Gratefully, she is finally ignoring the CDs & DVDs, doesn't empty trash much, and usually only draws on paper. And she still naps everyday. I like this "death by lion" sleeping position: 

She still loves the ocean; I had to stay within 5 feet of her when she was in the waves; she has no sense of self-preservation--only fun in the waves.

 
And she talks. A lot. Her vocabulary currently includes about 50 words and letters, including these that everyone understands: peas, pee, keys, sss, num-num, thirsty (pointing to mouth), church, Jesus, beach, moon, Mommy, Daddy, baby, bear, rarr, fish, meow, doggie, eyes, knee, teeth, hot, hat, yes, no, uh-uh, uh-oh, yeah, yay, whoa, whee!, wow, ooo, oh, down, all done, please, ball, bowl, dots, mine, bye-bye, hi, ow, boo, A, B, D, E, I, O, P, S, T, 8.

And of course there are words that only I understand: potty, nose, chest, shoes, dust, stop, go, (fake snoring), kitty, monkey, what/who is it?, I don't know, up, please, thank you (her worst pronunciation, sounding like 'te-te'), tickle tickle (sounds like thank you), eggs, butterfly and other words she can copy, but can't say without me saying it first. She understands a lot of commands like "Put that in the trash" "Can you walk out to the car with me?" and "Do you want to be in trouble?" to which she already responds "No". Smart kid.

She can do the actions to several songs, but she only sings 4 songs on her own.

• "Moon, moon, moon, garbl tedy dy. Moon, moon, moon, teedi de nommy." 
• "Row, row" (row your boat)
• "Vy vy vy! Vy vy vy!" (Fly little butterfly, fly, fly, fly!) 
• "depedee daa HEY! nineenah HEY! oh dee dee HEY!" (our version of Jingle Bells with Hey! after every line).

She is a great singer, so long as it repeats.

Jessica has just barely learned the difference between sucking on a straw, blowing on hot food (not at us), blowing through a straw (and not just at the top of it), blowing through a flute and humming into a kazoo, and not getting them all mixed up. And last weekend, all of a sudden, she figured out she needed a BIG breath to blow bubbles, and we were pretty pleased. But she can't hold the bubble wand herself in the right place. Understanding dance routines and astrophysics is going to take forever. But in the mean time, she's pretty cute. New "firsts", for her and for us, every day. Like this July 2nd video:

And yes, I'm warming her up for potty training already. She's already barely contained by size 5 diapers when sleeping, she's as long as the changing table, and is interested in the toilet. Now she frequently tells me before she goes in her diaper. But she would only sit on her potty for the 3 M&Ms, until last weekend. She peed in her potty and was so startled she jumped right off! I might've been a little too loud when I saw her going, too. Fun times!

Baby Milestones

For the people we love who are far away, and want see Jessica's progress, here are some of the little things we notice she's learned lately:

• watching us while we make her bottle
• pull her legs up when we change her diaper, or just for fun
• smiling at people
• cooing a lot more, more vowels and "talking"
• holding her own hands
• holding her hands or arm in her mouth and licking it (she still can't keep a pacifier in)
• kicking hard, and straigtening her legs to "stand" (finally! the doctor called her lack of standing "lazy" 2 appointments in a row)
• licking everything
• reading the warning label on her car seat
• rolling to her left side, or from her side to her back
• starting the night sleeping one way and waking up sleeping another
• sleeping from 7pm to 7am
• she's getting so fat she's losing the crease in the middle of her forearm
• she's grown out of her newborn clothes, dresses, and socks
• I think her hair is longer, but her head is bigger, so it looks the same
• holding a rattle and shaking it a while before dropping it