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I feel like I need to devote some time to Lucas this post. His reading lately has vastly improved. He started out site reading the common 3-4 letter words back in October/November (right around the time when he was 3 1/2). Early this year I noticed him really trying to sound out longer words, with unsuccessful results; he could sound out the letters easily enough, but struggled when trying to put the sounds together to form words. Then all of a sudden, lately he's been really reading... anything and everything! He gets these summary sheets from preschool and Sunday school and reads them with almost no errors. He has been taking Clara's chapter books and opening them to random pages and reading paragraphs at a time. Although this does bother me slightly, I'm still impressed, he can read over my shoulder as I'm typing an email (or a blog post). It's funny... sometimes, I'll type something about him, just to see if he is paying attention to what he's reading... he usually is! It may take him a minute or two, but he'll respond with either a big smile or a loud "you can't write that!". Let me be perfectly clear that I am overly proud of my little man. I do worry, however, that we are in for another journey that follows in Clara's footsteps... the struggle to find a perfect fit for him in the classroom, the struggle that he will have with social situations. I keep telling myself to just step back and be the proud mom (isn't that the 'don't worry be happy' mantra?).

Swim is still going for Clara. She seems to be doing well, with my only measure for that was seeing her jump into the pool without holding the teacher's hand. As far as strokes and actual swimming... I haven't seen much improvement, but it's still early. We ended up having to drop Lucas' swim class, which was disappointing as he loves it and looks forward to it so much. The teacher just approached the class as a free swim with no structure or control. That approach would work well with a class where the kids were just starting to get comfortable in the water, but this should have been an introduction to skills class. I just felt like it was wasting money. I will definitely try again next session (hopefully it will be a different teacher).

Clara's soccer season started this past week. I really am glad that she is enjoying it as much as she is. Her team this season ended up with the same color jerseys that they had last season... a kind of maroon red. Last season, the team name was Maroon Dragons. This season, they are Red Fire, which was Clara's suggestion! I love the name... so clever and I especially love that it was Clara's suggestion and the other girls voted for it! At her first practice on Thursday, at the onset she was so excited, and then as practice continued, it seemed like she was right back where she started last season, crying when she was out or when others got the ball into the goal. After the practice, I was a bit concerned how she would do on game day... but she surprised me! The game was fantastic... not one tear was shed, she got in there and really tried... she even got control of the ball a few times, and when she was on the sideline... she was cheering on her teammates!! She even managed to keep the other team from scoring on their final goal. She was jumping up and down, so proud of herself for kicking their ball out of bounds.

Eli's temper has become so prominent lately. When he doesn't get his way, he literally, throws himself (picture a belly flop) onto the floor (and yes... he has given himself bruises on his head from doing this) and cries. It is so funny and so sad all at the same time. He is one cute little guy. He has taken to playing hide-and-seek a lot. If he sees somebody coming toward him, he'll run away and hide, laughing the entire time. I absolutely love how when he gets to laughing really hard, he'll throw his head back. It is the funniest thing! Oh... and he now has his two top 1-year molars and is working on the bottom two. His teeth are coming in just like Lucas'... completely out of order!

This week is spring break, which means no school, no preschool, and no activities. I envisioned this to be a relaxing week, where we could break out some board games, maybe I could actually get some spring cleaning done. It doesn't look like that is going to be the type of week this is shaping up to be. We have been busy everyday so far and have plans for the rest of the week as well. I just really hope that I can schedule an hour or two in one of these days to work with Clara on her sewing kit or that might be one promise that she will be devastated that I break.