Thankful Thursday - 300

 My 300th Thankful Thursday post! That is pretty crazy.

This week I am thankful for...

1. Bath time buddies. It's rare they all get in the tub together. Making memories!

The iconic bath time photo. We all have one of these from our childhood right?

One example I have on hand. How much does Dom look like Jeff? Freaky. Not in the top photo necessarily, but in general.

2. Emilia's Preschool Transition. Emilia had her first couple days of preschool this week! It's a major transition for her because it's the first time she's every done anything(?) on her own without Dom. She was soooo proud the first day I picked her up to tell me she'd made a friend already. I can't wait to see how this year changes her and makes her feel so much more confident and independent! Drop off also went better than expected and she was very brave. 

On Thursday we kept Dom home from school as he seemed like maybe he's coming down with something so Emilia was at school all by herself. She said she was a little nervous at first, but then she "had a happy happy day!" 

3. Baptism Invite. I got the honour of being invited to see James be baptized at a private baptism over the weekend! I also got baby snuggles which is a boooonus.

4. Drop Offs & Kindergarten. So far school drop offs have been going pretty well. We get there early and go play on the playground for a bit. Dom has no use for me anymore and doesn't even kiss me goodbye. That happened quicker than I expected haha! 

We had our private meeting with his teacher yesterday. We booked a time slot and went in for 20 minutes. Dom nervously and very goofily showed Dave around the classroom for a minute, and then his teacher pulled out some "activities". It was basically an assessment to see where the kids are at at the beginning of the year with letters, numbers, etc. 

First she did numbers 1-20. He was answering them before she could get to them.
Next we did the capitalized alphabet. Easy peasy. Then we did lower case. he got probably 24/26 of them. Then she moved on to the sounds letters make. He got most of them, but wasn't sure about a few (mostly the vowels). Since he flew through all of that she got excited and grabbed a pen and paper and wrote out a few two-letter words to see where he's at with reading. We haven't done much with reading at all, and he'd never done those words before, but after she explained her way of teaching sounding words out he got the pattern and figured the last couple out on his own! 

Not that it's about perfection, but I could tell he felt really good and proud of himself. Apparently there are quite a few "high level" kids in his class, so that will be good for him. He won't get passed over, but he'll be challenged instead. 

Side note. I am obviously a perfectionist and probably have been forever. I distinctly remember when I was in Kindergarten doing a similar sort of "quiz". One on one, my teacher (Mrs. Langille for any of you John Knox-ers that might read this haha) held up letter cards and we had to say what sound they made. I got all of them correct except one. For "Q", I said "qu". She said, "Actually, Q makes the k sound on it's own! It just says "qu" when it's with a U." Of course that's one of my core memories from kindergarten. 
So in Dom's assessment, they got to letter Q, and he said, "I don't know" and she said, "Q makes the 'qu' sound." 
I could barely contain myself. EITHER SHE'S WRONG OR AFTER ALL THESE YEARS I ACTUALLY SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN 100% ON THE FIRST QUIZ OF MY LIFE! 
Haha I might have issues :)

Not actually from school, but they have a log playground there too

Seconds before she climbed up and flipped over doing a header into a faceplant into a very awkward somersault that looked incredibly painful.

5. A good puzzle. I don't often do puzzles, because when I do I get into a wormhole and everything else in life gets neglected. At least I can accomplish a 1000 piece puzzle in 24 hours this way haha. 

6. The big room change! On Monday morning Dom woke Emilia up (again) before 6am. She's been SO tired the poor thing. We decided while Dom was at school to switch the rooms around. Dom now has his own room in Eva's old room and we've moved Eva into the big room with Emilia. It was a big job, but Dave helped me and we got it done. Dom is in heaven. Emilia is a little less sure, and Eva is... Eva. The girls will adjust soon I'm sure (I hope?). They both got to sleep in on Wednesday which was good for everyone involved!

I'll have to get some better pictures, but this is Dom's set up in Eva's old room. Basically it's the toy room with a mattress haha. He's very bitter that he's just on a mattress on the floor (he was demoted from the top bunk) and he will tell anyone apparently. 

He is taking such pride in his new room though and has cleaned up all his toys and put them in their proper spots every day. He has a nightlight he controls so he can turn it on after 6:30am, and turns it off at a time we decide together at bedtime (depending how tired he seems). Great step for his independence.

Very early stages of the room shifting. I turned their bed around and then things just got crazy from thereon in. Again, I'll have to take some proper pictures.