He is trying to do me in!

His strategy is sleep deprivation...

Everyday this week Matthew has been a little morning lark. He gets up between 5:30 a 6:00 and wants me up too. Naturally I tell him to forget it, it's not really morning time yet. I do tell him that there is plenty of yogurt, cereal, and fruit if he's hungry, and he knows how to help himself. Not satisfied with my answer, he continues to be my little snooze button. Every 15-30 minutes he has another question, problem, or something he's just dying to tell me. Grrr.

I tried to take a nap today while Melissa napped. Matthew was supposed to finish cleaning his room (that he was assigned to do yesterday) or take a nap himself. Instead he searched for ways to keep his mother up.

Crank up music, check. (Mom tells him to turn it down)

Banging around and jumping off of the bed, check. (Mom, now getting somewhat cranky, tells him to knock it off)

Tired Mama falls asleep.

Shortly thereafter he comes in and tells me he is bored. (Mom, now really cranky, yells OUT!)

Few minutes later dozing again. BANG BANG BANG! "Mom I have to tell you something. This magazine is stuck." AHHHHH! His sister is now awake too. (Mom now has smoke coming out her ears) He is informed that his presence is not welcome on any uncertain terms, he is not to be seen or heard while I try to get his sister back to sleep. I scoop up Melissa and take her to bed with me hoping she'll cuddle up to me and fall back asleep. It works, except now I can't go back to sleep.

Resigned I get up. What a lousy nap.

For the record, the room is still not clean....

When is isn't waking me up he keeps up a stream of unrelenting chatter. During lunch he was putting all kinds of different letters in front of his name and laughing hysterically. "If I put a 'T' if front of my name it would be 'Tatthew' Huh, Mom? Isn't that silly? Ha ha ha!" He expects a response for every gem he comes up with. Then when he tires of that he likes to ask obscure questions and wants to know "how come?" "why" or "how" things work. Often times I don't know or have a good answer! I know he's just curious about everything, and this is how he learns. Why, oh why did I pray for bright, inquisitive kids?! So. Very. Tiring.



Reading Progress
On a more positive note, Matthew is really picking up on his reading. A lot of it is self driven too. I really have not been actively teaching much. We do read a lot together though. Today he took Hop on Pop in the car and read a good portion of the book. As we drove to speech class he sounded out the words and I helped him with the ones that "broke the rules." For instance, words like "they" and "good", where you'd think that the first vowel would be long. He did pretty well. In speech class his teacher had him read some sentences too, and was impressed with how well he was doing. His preschool teacher has also commented on his "kindergarten" work in reading and penmanship.