Some Were Born to Be Great, Others Have Greatness Thrust Upon Them

Brigid seems to be in a hurry to qualify for dental benefits. She only just finished cutting the second top front tooth when a third top tooth emerged, left of center. So she's working on five so far. Believe me, when she's in a mood not to concentrate on nursing, I feel every one of them.

I think our Baby B is going through a growth spurt because all she really wants to do is nurse. The last few days nothing but the boob has seemed to satisfy her. Her dinner-time feeding of cereal, squash-or-sweet potatoes-or-peas-or-carrots and peaches-or-pears-or-bananas has been going very well, and she seems very happy to sit with us and open her mouth on cue when the spoon comes by. She is also getting very adept at picking up Cheerios or these new things, Veggie Puffs, and putting them in her mouth. But it doesn't seem to make a difference to her otherwise. She's just as happy to drink her meals all day. Last night, she nursed through most of the evening, snoozing as she did so. We're still not having much luck in the crib department, but soon, soon we'll be able to move the crib to the next room.

I may have posted this before, but I'm so proud of our Baby B I have to boast. Yesterday we were running errands in the car and she had pulled her Padder shoe off one foot, exposing her chubby, monkey toes. I was sitting at a red light and looked back at her. I said, "Where are your toes? Where are Brigid's toes?" She looked at her foot, lifted it up and grabbed her toes. And, last night, she once again demonstrated that she knows her cow, which is different from having a cow, although she's had those, too. We were playing on the living room floor and she had an array of toys splayed out and I told her to go get her cow. She crawled over to the Busy Box and I thought, "Oh well, good try." But she turned left and grabbed the little Fisher Price cow that was there and almost held it out for me to see before shoving the hoove into her mouth. It's mindboggling how a brain that young can process information. They're not just little blobs of cuteness that only know when they're hungry, tired or wet. She's soaking up information and processing it in her brain and in turn is able to communicate her knowledge when she makes the connection between what we're asking or talking about and what's in her frame of reference. It's amazing, the leaps her education takes.

Meanwhile, Patricia and Margaret continue to take leaps in their own education, with Margaret's straight-A performances in middle school and Patricia's performance in the Odyssey program in fourth grade. Odyssey is what they used to call "gifted and talented." But I guess that bothered the parents of students were were less-than-gifted and not-so-talented. The kids are taken out of their regular classroom and are given enrichment in math and language arts. Some are invited to participate in one, the other or both. Patricia is in both and truly enjoys the challenge and exchange of information. It also means that any classwork missed in her regular class has to be made up, so some days she has more homework than usual, but she doesn't mind and it seems that homework on Oak Street's worse day is nothing compared to work sent home when they were in St. Peter's. More and more we're finding that the curriculum at St. Peter's was so much more advanced and difficult. Margaret has been asked by teachers how she knew something and she said she had already had it in fifth with Miss Bleeker; Patricia's class just started a math series that the students are struggling with and it's the math series they had been using at St. Peter's since Patricia started first grade (and Margaret in third). There's a writing across the curriculum component that they all would groan about, but now, in Mr. Fortin's class, Patricia is the only one who consistently knows what to do because it's what she's used to. So much for the old adage about parochial school being second-rate compared to the city schools. We done right by the girls, sending them to St. Pete's. I just wish Brigid had the same opportunity in her future.