Beth Oberle

I've been lurking too much and decided I'd better post something!

On the subject of unschooling/potty training; We are in the midst of it
right now in our house. Emma has taken it upon herself this week to start
using the potty. With her sister I fell into the trap of "it is time" and
"trained" her and as a result endured a lot of accidents and tears etc. I
wasn't even going to bring the topic up for many more months when little
Emma asked one day to sit on the potty and did her thing! She has spent
most of her at home time running around naked and has a stool in front of
the toilet so she can reach and she just goes in when she needs to. No
accidents yesterday. Now she's claimed ownership of that bathroom and
whenever her sister or I go in to use it she says, "no! my poopa!" Lucky we
have two others!LOL

On the subject of reading: I got the "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy
Lessons" last spring for Sarah because she was asking to learn to read. We
did a few lessons and quite frankly, she was bored by it. Lately I've
noticed she is picking up words and figuring out how to sound out things on
her own. We read a lot to her. She just finished the "Read to Me" summer
reading program at the library and we read over 100 books to her since June.
Those are just the library books, we read a lot of our own too!

On raising Spirited Children: Sarah and I are definately Spirited. When I
read that book when she was about 2 I had a big light bulb go on over my
head!!! She is more extroverted whereas I am introverted. This is
definately tiring some days. Fortunately we've recently had some girls her
age move into the neighborhood and she has been having daily playdates with
them. She comes home though so wound up and full of energy it takes a while
to cool her down and regroup! If she were in school she would probably be
given many labels; gifted in art and language, maybe ADD (she had about 14
of the traits listed) and who knows what else. I agree about teaching your
children to respect others. That has been our #1 lesson since she was born.
Recently I've had older woman at church (the toughest critics!LOL) come up
to me and comment on how polite and friendly Sarah is and how considerate
she is of others. This makes me happier than someone saying how "gifted"
she is etc.

Well gee, when I come out of lurking I do it up don't I??!!! Sorry for the
long post!

Beth O.