Her pose there looks a bit Austin Powersish doesn’t it??? Maybe our girl will have a sense of humor.?? 🙂

*************

Today Tori is 18 months old.?? I weighed her on my bathroom scale and low and behold, she was 20 pounds!?? 20.5 to be exact (although she did have a wet diaper on so she wasn’t really 20.5).?? Good grief it took her FOREVER to hit 20 pounds didn’t it?

*************

Jim and I have been talking lately about my strategy for reading curriculum for Ty.?? I used How To Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons for Tanner but I wasn’t sure about using it for Ty…would it bore him??? Because he has taught himself to read, I have to assume his phonics are sketchy (although he sounded out “daughter” the other day – what’s up with words like that?).?? I want him to have a good phonics base but I don’t want him to get bored.?? I decided to let him try to read the very last lesson in the 100 Easy Lessons book.?? If he did well on it…I would go to plan B.?? Not surprisingly, he needed very little help and read it quite quickly.?? Half way through he says “WHAT!?? I CAN’T read all those words!?? It’s too long!”?? My battle won’t be teaching him so much as getting him to sit still long enough to do anything.?? I encouraged him to finish and he zipped through it.

Again…was it the leapfrog fridge magnets??? The leapfrog videos??? (Remember he recognized letters AND their sounds by age 2).?? Computer time??? Who knows.?? I am super impressed though with the sheer volume of words he knows and his ability to sound out phonetically difficult words.?? It’s just weird really.

Anyhow…I think I will let him pick out his own books to read to me everyday so he doesn’t get bored but then let him do Explode the Code’s online course.?? (I actually started ETC with Tanner in 1st Grade not K-garten but Ty is ready for it).?? I want to put Ty online as much as I can because I don’t want the handwriting issues to complicate other subjects.?? Also switched to Saxon from Singapore for next year so that will keep us busy.?? We finally have time off but it doesn’t feel like it because I have so much scheduled this month I have no idea how I will get my “list” done and prepare for school.?? (I am a traditionalist and believe school should start the day after Labor day hee hee).

**********************

Lastly…I want to vent a complaint.?? It is SO HOT!?? Weather.com made me downright mad this week.?? My MIL and I took the kids to the library and when we stepped out of the car we were assaulted by the heat.?? I mean ASSAULTED.?? WE both would have sworn it was at least 112 out if not more.?? When I got home weather.com said it was only 108 in our zip code.?? Here is the patronizing point.?? That dang website had the guts to add “108 feels like 102”!???? WHAT???????? Would love to know what algorithm they base that little tidbit on.?? Bologna 102!?? Try 108 feels like 115!?? (Of course we were on black top and that does add a lot of heat to the equation).?? July had a record high year for heat in Phoenix.?? I felt better hearing that because I feel like I have been crying about this heat all summer.?? I CAN’T WAIT FOR FALL!!!!!!