Something new learned every day

For Tessa, yesterday it was spinning around in circles and the day before that it was blowing a whistle. I think having a big sister helps her to learn all sorts of new things that might take a little longer in a first or only child. Whatever Sophia does, Tessa wants to do too. Today Sophia was doing headstands (against the sofa or me) and forward rolls and Tessa sure was trying to do them all by herself, too.

Warning: this video shows the two of them going around and around in circles and may make you dizzy just watching it.



Sophia's newest skills are riding her bike and reading. She has been riding her bike since her birthday, off and on. However, sometimes she would be a little scared and she couldn't always get it going or stopped. Now, she is a pro and rides around our entire neighborhood. I have to jog or even run to keep up along beside her.





She is also making impressive steps in reading. She can read and sound out many words and occassionally she can read an entire sentence without prompts from me. She does get tired of it easily if she feels the words are too hard and then she says, "Mom, will you just read them fast to me?!" But I can see that she is just as proud of herself as I am when she reads several words in a row or sounds out one a few times and finally gets it. Now when I catch her reading books to herself or her sister, she still makes up part of the story, but she also reads some of the words that she knows or sounds out some short words. Here she is reading Dr. Seuss's Hop on Pop, a great book for learning to read.