Sunday, March 24, 2013

Khari Update


Wow, I cannot believe how long it's been since I wrote anything. I've actually put quite a bit of effort into making my AdSense work - it won't, and I can't seem to get any help with it. One of these days I'm going to have to sit down and just deal with it, but I don't have that kind of time. Maybe when Khari's a little older and spends an extended time with my parents or something.

Speaking of Khari...

Khari loves to see her Grandma!

And Grandma is so focused on the baby she doesn't always even notice the camera!

She decided the swing was a good idea... and on the same, day, the pacifier.
She had her first trip to Wunderland for Derek's eighth birthday party and played games with Daddy and Uncle Jason and Lexi...

And she learned to play at home... sort of.


 She started smiling more often...
Tax returns came!

First trip to Nexus!


Became a great conversationalist...













Got manhandled by a two-year old...

Learned to grab small objects...
Went to her first art show!


Rode in the park swing...











Developed her own facial expressions....

Sat in the high chair at IKEA...

And played her first game of Warhammer.
I go back to work next week and I'm not happy about it. Lucky for us, Daddy will be home with her on the days I work - no daycare for this girl! She loves her Daddy and he loves her, so I'm sure she'll have a great time once they get in a routine. That doesn't include me, *sob*.

One other thing that's changing is that we're starting to get more into her education. Most people who know us know we love books and Andy has always wanted to homeschool his children. Andy also suffers from an appalling lack of organization, so we found a free infant curriculum online as a way to not only make sure she's getting tons of attention (she loves being read to, sung to, played with, etc) but also to be sure that we can hold ourselves accountable as she gets older to make sure she's getting what she needs. And if we can't, we'll just pull the plug on the whole "homeschool" idea.

She's sleeping right now, but we start this week with the Brightly Beaming Curriculum, plus our own special additions, most of which we've been doing already for a while. She may not be learning much from this, I don't know, but I know I've picked up a few things myself and it's actually been pretty fun, so we should keep going forward, I guess.

Currently, Khari is doing the first lesson from Brightly Beaming, which takes about 2 weeks. We are also working on Elimination Communication with her. We haven't had tons of success, but we really aren't trying very hard either. We will probably get more diligent when we have a few more catches. We are trying to read to her about a different country and state every week - this one's more for our benefit at the moment, although it's nice to know that if we can keep it up as she grows, she'll know quite a bit more than we did at her age about the world she lives in. We are also working through the World History for Us All Curriculum, available free online, which at the very least has started some interesting conversations between us with Khari as a witness. I'm sure she'll contribute eventually.

Andy is dedicated to teaching her about different religions in the world, which so far has been reading Wikipedia to her. He has been focused on the patriarchs. This week it's Noah.

We read to her from chapter books before bed, right now we're on the fourth Harry Potter book, and I also show her some comics, so we're working through the X-Men... and that's about it.