Splurge or Save Thursday: Mongolian Cashmere Cardigan Sweater

A parent RSVPed to my kids party and said “Is this a party where we’re supposed to bring a gift?” I’ve thrown a lot of class birthday parties but this is a new one. What’s the most tactful way to respond? It isn’t a “no gifts” party so most people will probably bring a gift, but I don’t want to demand one (and my kid won’t notice or care if this one kid doesn’t bring a gift).

My 5 year old (mid way through kinder) has zero interest in doing anything that she considers to be “hard”. We try to practice sight words and reading with her, you’d think we were torturing her. She wanted to do gymnastics, until it got “hard” (i.e. doing backbends and other things that tire your muscles out.

These are just the examples I can think of off the top of my head, and honestly, it’s the reading and school stuff that has me worried. I’ve tried making it fun, tried rewards, tried making a big deal when she accomplishes something. There’s nothing that consistently motivates her, and I think it’s made worse by the fact that her older brother is highly motivated and very smart, in that we don’t really know how to handle a child that’s a bit more difficult in this area. She is right in the middle of the pack and on track per her teacher, so it’s not THAT big a deal, I am mostly just asking if there is something I haven’t thought of that I can do to make practicing reading at home (which she definitely needs to do, per the teacher) not torturous for her and us?

I posted about my kid’s speech therapist’s outreach – and you all were spot-on; she wanted to talk about off-ramping/graduating him in the next few months. We talked about some things we’d want him to work on, and agreed to re-group in May.

For those of you have gone through the off boarding process from speech – how did you know your kid was ready? Kid’s doing great, but I still feel like sometimes he doesn’t fully understand things, and this could also be age (he turned 4 over the holidays) plus my history of just being way too critical. I don’t have close enough friends who have had kids in speech (yet) so can’t really ask anyone IRL. DH thinks I’m overthinking, and he’s probably right.

Examples: There’s an instrument from another country we’ve read about in a book, we were looking at the map this AM, and I was like “Oh, what instrument is from X country?” and he took some prodding to remember. Or, another one – older kid and I are going out of town this weekend, and I was telling younger kid the plan, reminding him he’ll stay with his grandparents, and I feel like he only got it (e.g. could tell me where we were going, where he was staying) after I walked him through it a couple of times. Sometimes he doesn’t know the names for things (e.g. knows a bunch of different fruits, but not a lemon), and there are a 2-3 colors he doesn’t get right still.