Smart and Sneaky

I know I've mentioned to you all before about how smart Lana is. Not in the same way Sonya is, but in that logical, figure how to get what I want, sort of way. I sometimes forget that she is like this. This can also lead to her being sneaky when she knows she's doing something she shouldn't be. Sonya is usually more straightforward, so it catches me off guard when Lana acts this way.

A couple of weeks ago, when my family was here, my mom brought these miniture jars with M&M's in them for the girls. They were party favors at a wedding they recently attended. Nona made sure to get enough so each of her granddaughters had one. She gave them out when she got here. For Lana this was a perfect present. A tiny container! With CANDY?! Is it Christmas?!

She immediately decided this was her new treasure, and began to carry it around in her purse with her other treasures of the day. I let her open it once to take out a couple of M&Ms, but it was just after breakfast and I wasn't letting her eat the whole jar. I'm not that crazy. Yet.

About an hour later we all packed up to take the kids to gymnastics. Lana wanted to take her jar of M&M's with her, but I told her no way. She couldn't do gymnastics with a little jar and we weren't about to leave it in the car where it would become M&M fondue. We argued about it for a minute and then my mom offered to Lana to keep the jar in her purse. She thought about it for a minute and decided it was okay. The only problem with this solution was that my parents left halfway through gymnastics to bury my Grandmother's ashes. They wouldn't be home for the rest of the day. I didn't think about that part until we got home and Lana said,

"Whea aw my M&M's?"

Crap. Ummmmm...

"Sorry Lana, I think they're still in Nona's purse. We'll get them when she gets back," I tried to tell her.

"Noooo! I wan my M&M's now!" She complained.

"Well you'll just have to wait until she gets home," I explained again.

This was not what she wanted to hear, and she proceeded to start crying over her miniture jar of M&M's. Great. Now, most of the time I just let her cry and get over it, but I was trying to get her down for a nap. To be honest, I just didn't feel like dealing with a tantrum right then. So I did the bad mom thing and I gave in. Sorta.

"Look! Here's GG's jar of M&M's. You can borrow them until Nona gets back," I told her.

The fact was she just liked carrying around the little jar and I wasn't going to let her eat any of the candy right then anyway. Plus the lid on the jar was a little hard to get off, especially for the kids.

She stopped crying and agreed to "borrow" her sisters jar until my mom got back. Georgia didn't even know she had such a jar or that it got leant out, so all was well again. I took Lana and her jar to her bedroom for her nap. She wanted to hold the jar, but she agreed to let me place it on top of her dresser instead. This way it was still near her, but she couldn't get to it. Or so I thought. I left the room and didn't hear another peep from her, which I did find a bit unusual because most of the time I get at least one request for something at naptime. I think I was just happy to have three of the five kids sleeping at that point, so I ignored my, "something's a little off" thoughts.

Around three o'clock, I decided Lana needed to get up from her nap. We opened the door to her room to let her wake up on her own. Then I went in to check on her five minutes after that. That's when I found her sitting in bed with an empty jar on her nightstand. The jar that used to have M&M's in it before her nap. I picked it up and looked at her and she just smiled at me.

"Lana, what did you do?" I asked as straightfaced as I could.

"I eat GG's M&M's," she said coolly, while still chewing on her blankie.

I was trying so hard to not laugh. I was the one who left them in the room, although I thought she coudln't get to them. Obviously I was wrong and seriously underestimated what my daughter can do when she really wants something. I have NO idea how she even got that lid off. It must have taken her a while and she was so quiet doing it. None of us heard a thing, and we have a pretty small house.

I did end up punishing her. She was under the impression that when Nona came back, she'd get her own jar once again. When I informed her that her old jar would now be Georgia's, she started to cry and pout as before. This time I let her go. She eventually got over it. She even opened the now empty jar and started to put her own treasures in it.

Later that day when Georgia got the other jar that WAS filled, I let her eat a few of the M&M's. Don't you know I caught Lana sweet talking poor little Georgia into giving her a few of those little candies, even though she had a entire jar for herself already.

See...smart and sneaky. Somebody save me.

Book vs Street

Over the weekend, Andy was voicing his concerns to me that Lana isn't, "where she should be", academically speaking. We have this conversation every so often. I always assure him that Lana is exactly where she should be, even if it is a little behind where Sonya was at her same age.

The problem with Sonya being first was that she was WAY ahead of all kids her age. I've mentioned this before. I promise it isn't bragging, it's just fact. I mean the kid knew ALL of her numbers, letters, and colors by 18 months. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it myself. So this is what we knew of children learning. We didn't realize that with most kids you have to actually do some teaching yourself, and that they don't learn by osmosis like Sonya did.

Lana is at a normal pace of learning things. She's where most kids her age are, perhaps even a bit ahead. She knows most of her letters, numbers, and all of her colors. But by the time Sonya was this age, she was starting on some reading skills. Lana still has a way to go to get there. Because of this, Andy gets concerned from time to time, that Lana isn't going to keep up. That and she doesn't seem to have as much an interest or attention span as Sonya did. Will Lana be the straight A student that Sonya most likely will be? Maybe, but she will probably have to work at it harder than her sister. Lana, however, has more of what people would refer to as, "street smarts" or even life logic. She has this all over Sonya. She can figure a way out of or into a situation much quicker than her older sister. This was made even more clear to me on our trip to the grocery store Tuesday morning.

After we finished our shopping I allowed the girls to each get a free balloons that Ralph's gives out. They were all fairly well behaved and they love balloons, so I gave it to them as a reward. Plus they're FREE! Who can complain?

It was a little windy that day and the balloons started blowing around when we walked outside. Keep in mind they were weighted, so they weren't going anywhere. As soon as they started blowing with the wind, Sonya got nervous. I assured her it wasn't going to blow away. I opened both doors to the van and put the kids and the balloons inside. It was at this point that there was a bigger gust of wind, and since both doors were open it created a cross breeze. Sonya's balloon, which she was holding on to AND was weighted, made it's way outside one of the doors. It was only the balloon part and she still had a hold of the string it was tied to, but she started a full scale flip out.

"MY BAAAALLLOOOONNNN!! NOOOO!! MYYY BAAALLOOOOON!!" She yelled.

"Sonya," I said in my most calm Mom voice. "Sonya, calm down and think about how to handle this situation. You don't need to get upset and flip out about this. You're balloon is not going anywhere."

The balloon continued to bob outside of the car and she tugged on the string, trying to reel it back in still yelling, "NOOOOOO!!! MY BAAALLLOOONN!!"

I continued to try and talk her down, then showed her how easy it was to gently bring the balloon back in the car.

"But it's going to fly out again!!" She wailed.

I started to try and appeal to any higher sense she had to think of a solution to the situation. Before I could get two words out, Lana who had been watching the entire scene, took it upon herself to push the button on the van that closes the door. The same door the balloon was trying to escape from. Problem solved.

"Nice job, Lana! That was smart thinking." I told her.

She just looked at me with a "what's the big deal?" look, and climbed into her car seat.

Okay no, Lana isn't as "book" smart as Sonya is, but she's not that far behind and she obviously thinks more logically than her sister. This may just give her an advantage over Sonya's smarts in the long run.

So yes Andy, I think Lana will be juuust fine.

Big Head

I realized the other day that we may be giving Sonya a bit of an ego, in regards to how smart she is. She hears us talk to other people about her intelligence. Plus we tell her how smart she is on a regular basis, since it usually amazes us. So when I heard her toot her own horn, so to speak, one day last week, it kinda threw me off.

The girls were having their lunch, and I heard Sonya talking to Lana about things that were plain and things that had designs. She was trying to explain how there are some things that have different patterns on them and that was called a design. She used their place mats as examples. Then she said the chairs were just plain, and they are, they're just pine color wooden dining chairs. I think she used fashion as examples as well at one point. At first I was only half listening to this, but then I started to pay more attention. I was trying to figure out where she had heard something like this. I hadn't told her, but thought she may have learned it at school. It made sense because, they are learning about different modern artists lately. I know this since yesterday when she came home and told me,

"Andy Warhol had 25 cats and they were all named Sam. Why would he name them all the same thing? That's boring!"

I guess boring is one word for it. Anyway, I just assumed learning about things that were plain and things that had designs had to be from school, but I decided to ask anyway.

"Sonya where did you learn that from, about the designs and things?" I asked.

She looked right at me, cocked her head to the side, put her hand on her hip, and with a slight roll of her eyes said,

"Ya know, S-M-A-R-T," and yes she spelled it.

I do believe we've created a monster. A S-M-A-R-T monster, but a monster nonetheless.

Little Miss Smarty Pants

I've mentioned before on this blog that my oldest, Sonya, is pretty smart.  I mean I try not to brag about it too much on here or in person, because I don't want to be one of THOSE parents.  You know the kind who talks about how smart they're kid is, when really they are just average kids.  Let's be honest, that's what most kids are, average.  We would all like to think OUR precious darling is the smartest thing ever to walk the earth, but in reality, they are learning things at a normal pace.  Therefore, I was always hesitant to say too much about Sonya, although she was talking in complete sentences by 20 months and knew all of her numbers, letters, and colors by 18 months.  She knew most of that stuff before she even started walking. 

 I didn't realize how ahead of the curve she was, until I saw other kids her age.  They were lucky if they knew the difference between a letter and a color, and that was fine because that is where they were supposed to be.  Then when Lana started getting older I realized it even more.  Not that Lana is stupid, mind you, she's just on the more average intelligence track.  However, what Lana lacks in book smarts, she more than makes up for it in analytical thinking and "street" smarts.  She figured out to take the stool out of the bathroom to reach the candy on the kitchen counter, while Sonya would longing stare at it from the floor.  

Still, Sonya has already been reading for almost a year now and over the summer she started to get the hang of writing.  This is something that has floored both Andy and I, because although we may help her from time to time, neither of us drills this stuff into her head.  We never did.  We've always read to her or talked about colors, letters etc, but for the most part, she is a sponge and soaks everything in quickly.  I am always  amazed when she does something I haven't seen before and didn't realize she could do.  

On Friday afternoon she decided to color and draw some pictures.  Lately, when she draws she'll write words on her pictures.  Most of the time it's her name, "Mommy" or "Daddy".  If she ever wants to write a different word, she'll ask me how to spell it.  We usually go through the word together sound by sound, and she'll write each letter down as she figures out what it is.  This particular drawing session I was in my room changing the sheets on my bed, as Friday is change the sheets day in our house.  I walked out to the living room and Sonya said, 

"Mommy look!"  She picked up her piece of paper she had been drawing on and proudly held it up for me to see.   There on the paper were two words with drawings next to them, "CANDY CORN" and "PUMPKIN", spelled just like that, CORRECTLY.  

"Sonya," I said, "did you write those words by yourself?"

"Yeah," she said nonchalantly.

"You figured out how to spell them by yourself?" I asked in amazement.

"Yeah," she said like it was no big deal.  

"Wow, Sonya!  That's great!  Good job for spelling them right!" I enthusiastically told her.

"Moooommmmmyyyy," she said a bit exasperated, "it was easy! All I had to do was sound them out."

"Oh well, if that's all you had to do then, I guess it wasn't a big deal," I said.  Then I swear she rolled her eyes at me and went back to coloring.  

Sure there are a few kids in kindergarten who are spelling words, but I'm pretty sure most of those words are "cat" or "hat".  How many of them are spelling two syllable words, and spelling them correctly?  And what about "pumpkin"?  I don't think most kids know about that second "p" even in first of second grade. Hell, I'm not sure I knew it even in the 9th grade!  Then again I was always a poor speller.  However, the most important thing to remember here is not only the fact that she's just in kindergarten, but she's still ONLY FOUR!  So that's it, I decided I'm allowed.  My kid is damn smart!  Maybe not graduate from high school at age 12, genius smart, but certainly, AP High School English smart.  So, I'm bragging.  Even if only on here for a minute in this post.  I'll try no to be too obnoxious about it if I see you in person.  Although, my poor friend Julian (hey Jules!) got some of it last night when we went out to dinner.  She didn't mind though, because she's seen Sonya in action and knows I speak the truth, and I'm not just trying to be one of THOSE parents.  Even though, by default I guess I am anyway.  Oh well!  My daughter spelled PUMPKIN!