I'm That Mom

I know that every mom anywhere thinks that her Snowflake is the Smartest Ever, or, at least, the Most Clever Ever Kid to Walk The Earth.

My husband's aunt is on the Board of Directors at the local Lutheran School.  She called this morning because it came to her attention over the weekend that they have 5 kids enrolled in the Pre-K program.  One of those kids is 3 years old.  She wanted to know if I was interested in seeing if we could get my older daughter in on that action.

My older daughter will turn 3 in 13 days.

In the state of Oklahoma, children must be 5 years old on September 1 to enter Kindergarten.  My kid will be almost 6 when she's legally allowed to start her (outside the home) school career in this state.  My kid takes after her parents and is smarter than the average bear (in my very humble opinion).  I remember being bored in school.  My husband remembers being bored in school.  My husband and I were also among the younger students in our class.  We have talked about the situation and decided to put her in some sort of preschool, then do either Lutheran Private or public school Kindy and re-evaluate as we go through the early grades.  I don't know that I'm cut out to homeschool, and my hope is that the very small classes at the Lutheran school would give her the flexibility to read up (or science up, or math up, or whatever) with higher grades if she's not being challenged in her "appropiate" grade.

We do have the option to "try it out", and to try it out on a M-W-F schedule.  (The Pre-K program is officially M-F, 8:15-3, and does include nap/rest time.)

So... am I crazy for considering this?  Is it nuts to put my 3 year old in a class designed for kids up to two years older than she is?  Am I setting her up to fail?  Am I That Mom?  What am I not thinking of here?

A Very Small Worry

Long story short, my younger daughter was very happily hanging out in the upper half of the growth charts through her four month well baby check.  At her six month check, she'd started sliding (41% - height, 32% - weight).  No worries, her sister did the same thing.  But by her nine month check, she'd slid to -1% height and 11% - weight.  Still okay.  At her twelve month check, she was at 3% - height and 7% - weight.  Our pediatrician asked for a 15 month well baby visit to check her growth.

In the last nine months, my fifteen-month-old has grown 3 inches and gained 3 lbs., 4 ozs, which puts her in the 8% - height and -1% - weight.  She's been wearing the same clothes for well over half her life.

We've done bloodwork.  We've done more bloodwork.  We have still more bloodwork scheduled for next week.

So far, they've found a high number of atypical lymphocites, which points to the probability of a long term viral something, and slightly elevated tsh, which could mean a thyroid something.  We're re-running the CBC to check the lymphocytes and doing a thyroid panel next week.
Other than that, her chemistries are normal.  Her platelets are fine.  Her iron is fine.  They did a respiratory study, which came back fine.  The front-runners in the viral arena are CMV and Epstein-Barr Virus - she tested negative for both of them.

The Pediatrician doesn't think it's related to her heart at all.  He listed off 5 or 6 things that we would have seen that we haven't, so....

I'm loading her up with Pediasure, avacados, and butter/whipped cream/olive oil every chance I get.  What say you, blog readers?

When those Smith Girls decide to start getting on with it...

... They get on with it. 
4 weddings in 5 years (2003-2008) brought us from being "The Smith Girls" to the "Smith-Laumooretskers".

Starting with the First Addition (July, 2007) and including the Latest Addition, born at 1:41 this afternoon, there are now 6 Laumooretsker Offspring.

My oldest niece was 14 months old when my older daughter was born.  My older daughter was 14 months old when my oldest nephew was born.  My oldest nephew was 5 months old when my younger daughter was born.  My younger daughter was 13 1/2 months old when my youngest nephew was born.  My youngest nephew is 7 weeks old today, and my youngest niece is hours old.

We've got a Plan.  It includes taking over the world.

I totally should have known that a Google Image Search for "lots of kids" would bring up mostly images of one particular very large, debt-free family from Arkansas and a certain kinda-creepy guy with multiple wives that got ran encouraged to move out of Utah...