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03/04/2004 Archived Entry: "snow, classes and other stuff"

So my daughter has finally seen "real snow" as she puts it. We've taken her twice to snow events that helicopter snow in from the mountains (and it is real snow, not man made), but that was never good enough. It's been raining for the last week here and the mountains are just covered in gorgeous powder so off we went yesterday for a 45-minute drive north to the mountains. We had quite a bit of fun, even if was way colder than we're used to here in the valley. We made a small snowman, Tabitha attempted snow angels, and we had the obligatory snow ball fight. After about an hour, Tabitha was just tired of it all and I think she finally realizes why I tell her we'll most likely never live in the snow.

It was a full day as we had a field trip yesterday morning to SCATS gymnastics. It's the same program as the one we went to a birthday party at 2 weeks ago, but this one is only a mile or two from our home. We picked up the info for their classes and we'll go in a week or so to sign Tabitha up for the 5 and 6 year old class. They have one on Mondays at 12:15 so that kind of makes me think there might be homeschoolers in that class. But, it could just be kids who waited a year before going to school or kids who come after morning kindergarten. Plus, starting Sunday, Chris will be off Sunday and Monday from now on and we don't like to have commitments on his days off. So, we'll probably go with another day.

Speaking of classes, it's March which means it's time to register for all the summer day camps out there. Tabitha will take 4 classes, one at the Natural History Museum, one at the Science Center, one at the LA Zoo, and the other at the Discovery Center. Of course, at over $100 per class, this is not going to be easy. Tabitha loves these classes so much though, so we'll manage, of course.

Remember I said Tabitha never developed a full cold? While that holds true, she does have one heck of a cough. It's dry and just bothersome more than anything. I feel so bad for her. Cough medicine just doesn't help. I have her on the strongest one out there for kids and she's still hacking her lungs out. I've even tried upping the dosage as she's close to the next dosage weight wise, but that doesn't work either. She's not having too much trouble sleeping, thank goodness. We give her night-time medicine, rub Vapo-rub on her chest and run the humidifier and she's sleeping through the night. But all day long it's just sad to listen to her. Lingering coughs are just awful. She's not even contagious, but I might have to cancel a playdate tomorrow because she sounds so bad. We did cancel her riding lesson this week. I had her nap today (against her will) and she managed to sleep for about 2 hours. I just hope this doesn't mean I can't get her down tonight. When she woke up she asked to do lessons, but she was coughing so bad, she couldn't speak real well so we called it quits for the day. It has to be her decision not to have lessons though, if I mention it she begs me for lessons.

I'm taking a look at a language arts program that looks interesting. It's called Learning Language Arts Through Literature. I've heard of it before, but never looked into it before now. What draws me to it is it's an all inclusive program; Reading, spelling, phonics, grammar and writing, all based on good stories. That really appeals to me as opposed to coming up with grammar exercises, writing exercises, spelling lists, etc. I have one problem though. Tabitha's reading level is higher than her grammar, writing and spelling level. Reading wise, she's at a 3rd grade level. But for everything else, she's still a first grader. I'll probably just split the difference at order the 2nd grade level. There are sample pages on the website that I'm going to print out for my review. Also, there's a homeschool conference this month and I'm thinking of going just for the vendor hall and hopefully someone there will carry this program so I can look at it more closely before making a final decision.

Right now, Tabitha is playing computer games and eating ice cream in an attempt to soothe her throat. Still two hours until bed time and it's loads of fun trying to keep an active 5 year old calm and relaxed so as not to irritate her coughing further.