Four years and three months Laila update
2025-Aug-19, Tuesday 17:35![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorchadas
I technically should have written this last week, but I wanted to delay it a week because of an extremely momentous event:
It was Laila's first day of school!
She had a good time and we had no incidents with her going away from us. Unlike some of the other kids, who cried when they realized that their parents were not going with them into the school, Laila just looked around a bit worried and confused. I imagine she was trying to figure out what was going on and if she needed to start crying too if the other children were reacting that way, but we left while one of the teachers was talking to her and when![[instagram.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/profile_icons/instagram.png)
sashagee came to pick her up, she wasn't told about any incidents that had happened. And today, when we told her she was going back to school again, her reaction was "Yaaay school!!" so we had about the best possible first day we could.
She's only in half-day preschool at the moment because she hasn't been in any kind of structured environment like that without one of us present, ever--no daycare, no other school, and all her classes one of us was there. The first day at least went well. Hopefully the first week goes well.
In other good news, Laila is finally happy about using the potty for everything! She still has accidents--she's four, of course she does--but she'll run into the bathroom and sometimes we'll hear clapping and "Yaaaaay! Good job! Big girl!" from her and know we need to put another sticker on her chart. Her last bonus she got when she hit thirteen times was a princess tiara and a magic wand, both with Ariel the mermaid on them. Laila is still super deep in her princess phase.
Perhaps more interesting, in that it's atypical of four-year-old girls, is that she loves watching train videos, both ones of train crossings where the train goes on, and those videos taken from the front of trains--this one has gotten a lot of play lately--and she loves them so much that she's been requesting them even above Bluey or Hello Kitty Supercute Adventures. She's always been into trains, and even as a baby when we'd take her on the L she would get excited when a train would pull up to the station, so it's not out of character for her. But this specific interest has only appeared in the last month or so.
She's doing well in her swimming classes. She still throws all kinds of things into the pool, but last class was the first time she jumped off the wall and swam across half the lane to her teacher again.
Unfortunately, she had another seizure recently, but the doctors seem convinced that it's because she's growing and needs her medicine adjusted for her weight. They're raising it a bit and we'll see what happens. It's worrying, of course, but I'll just have to see what happens. But the doctors don't seem too worried.
Her language is improving, slowly. We have her in occupational and speech therapy--again, I think the state was incorrect in graduating her out of therapy when she was turning three--every week, and like I've said, they seem optimistic that she doesn't need too much help. She's been using more sentences, like "I've got my princess stuff!" and "I want to go to school," at least when she's not remembering that she's supposed to be staring at us and not talking to us. She definitely has some stubbornness and thinks, "Oh, abba and mama want me to talk? Then I won't!" But if we catch her while she's excited and doesn't remember that, well, then the words are starting to come out.
What other ways will she grow and change?
It was Laila's first day of school!
She had a good time and we had no incidents with her going away from us. Unlike some of the other kids, who cried when they realized that their parents were not going with them into the school, Laila just looked around a bit worried and confused. I imagine she was trying to figure out what was going on and if she needed to start crying too if the other children were reacting that way, but we left while one of the teachers was talking to her and when
sashagee came to pick her up, she wasn't told about any incidents that had happened. And today, when we told her she was going back to school again, her reaction was "Yaaay school!!" so we had about the best possible first day we could.She's only in half-day preschool at the moment because she hasn't been in any kind of structured environment like that without one of us present, ever--no daycare, no other school, and all her classes one of us was there. The first day at least went well. Hopefully the first week goes well.
In other good news, Laila is finally happy about using the potty for everything! She still has accidents--she's four, of course she does--but she'll run into the bathroom and sometimes we'll hear clapping and "Yaaaaay! Good job! Big girl!" from her and know we need to put another sticker on her chart. Her last bonus she got when she hit thirteen times was a princess tiara and a magic wand, both with Ariel the mermaid on them. Laila is still super deep in her princess phase.
Perhaps more interesting, in that it's atypical of four-year-old girls, is that she loves watching train videos, both ones of train crossings where the train goes on, and those videos taken from the front of trains--this one has gotten a lot of play lately--and she loves them so much that she's been requesting them even above Bluey or Hello Kitty Supercute Adventures. She's always been into trains, and even as a baby when we'd take her on the L she would get excited when a train would pull up to the station, so it's not out of character for her. But this specific interest has only appeared in the last month or so.
She's doing well in her swimming classes. She still throws all kinds of things into the pool, but last class was the first time she jumped off the wall and swam across half the lane to her teacher again.
Unfortunately, she had another seizure recently, but the doctors seem convinced that it's because she's growing and needs her medicine adjusted for her weight. They're raising it a bit and we'll see what happens. It's worrying, of course, but I'll just have to see what happens. But the doctors don't seem too worried.
Her language is improving, slowly. We have her in occupational and speech therapy--again, I think the state was incorrect in graduating her out of therapy when she was turning three--every week, and like I've said, they seem optimistic that she doesn't need too much help. She's been using more sentences, like "I've got my princess stuff!" and "I want to go to school," at least when she's not remembering that she's supposed to be staring at us and not talking to us. She definitely has some stubbornness and thinks, "Oh, abba and mama want me to talk? Then I won't!" But if we catch her while she's excited and doesn't remember that, well, then the words are starting to come out.
What other ways will she grow and change?
no subject
Date: 2025-Aug-20, Wednesday 22:30 (UTC)I'm sure it must make you supremely happy that she has such an interest in learning already. It's also so precious that she encourages herself with the potty!
Swimming + Ariel = perfect princess phase IMO
Sorry to hear about the seizure, but I hope the slight medication adjustment will be just the thing to prevent any more going forward.
no subject
Date: 2025-Aug-22, Friday 09:55 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-Aug-25, Monday 09:22 (UTC)I wish Laila good luck at school. Oleg will start going to kindergarten in September. And I hope everything will go well too.
no subject
Date: 2025-Aug-26, Tuesday 16:38 (UTC)What a cute little strawberry!
She does love dressing up for school! Yesterday she picked out a cat-kaomoji sweater and her matching cat-kaomoji leggings and kept talking about how her clothes have cats on them. When I was at university, it took about two-three weeks before the new students went from polos and khakis/dresses and heels to wearing pajamas to class like everyone else. I feel like future Laila will delay that transition.
(We had to explicitly ban her from wearing her Ariel princess heels for a while because her feet were literally cut up and bleeding because she was wearing them so much and she still wanted to put them on again)
no subject
Date: 2025-Aug-26, Tuesday 16:50 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-Aug-26, Tuesday 17:04 (UTC)Laila so far has been loving school. Hopefully Oleg has as good a time.