Nickelle in Toddler lab

So being the wonderful mother I am I still have not gotten a picture of her before she goes to school. So I have none to put on here so I will just tell you what she looks like. She of course prefers either a pink outfit or a dress. ( She wears a dress unless I can talk her out of it.) Then her latest is she likes her hair down and we use the straightening iron to curl it under and then she likes some kind of hair thing in there. Then she carries a bright pink backpack with white stars. There you go, that is what she looks like all heading off the school.

This has turned out to be a really special thing for Nickelle. At the college they have a Toddler lab and it can be really hard to get into. Porter was a slam dunk at that age because the teachers are in early childhood special education so they need the kids with needs, but we got Nickelle in I am sure because I have been doing so much for campus lately. Anyways she and Porter go to school the same days and for the most part the same time. SHE Loves it!!!!! She will tell us all day long about everything she did at school. We spend so much time giving Porter therapy that it has been impossible to even have play-dates for Nickelle. So this has been so wonderful for us to give her this opportunity. She loves all her friends at school and has a great time with the teachers. They have already told me many times that she is a great peer tutor and helps the other kids know what to do. Poor girl that is pretty much her calling in life.

She has gotten so big lately. She is just about totally potty trained. Still some problems at night. She cannot seem to wake up even if she wets the bed. But that is the only time ever she has accidents and she takes care of everything on her own now. Porter and Nickelle have really started to understand chores and I am finally getting them to help a little around the house. She dresses herself all the time and I don't have to do anything to help her. She picks out what she wants to wear and then puts it on. Along with that though she sometimes changes ten times a day and it drives me nuts but I am trying to encourage her independence. As usual her being such a good example has started getting Porter to take more initiative in getting himself dressed. I can now hand him his clothes and about 75% of the time he will just dress himself. YEAH! Such a big deal! Also she has been big in helping us try and get Porter potty trained. She will say "Porter let's go potty" and then he will follow her into the bathroom and they will sit on the potty. She will go and then he sits there forever and does nothing, but we could not get him to sit there before. I have been trying very hard to get him potty trained. We spend a lot of time everyday sitting him on the potty and then trying to get him to go so he understands what we want him to do there. He never has gone. We have been doing this for two weeks straight. But hopefully soon. He will wear underwear but also he wets his pants and it doesn't seem to faze him. Darn! Nickelle has also been really funny with Porter's speech. In ST we have been working really hard on his sounds. So when he says things wrong I will sound it out and make him say it until I hear him say it really close or perfect and then make him say it using a bunch of different ways, so he can remember. Well Nickelle now will hear him say something and she will stop him and sound it out all the time. You would think this would bug him but it doesn't he just tries again. The funny thing is a handful of times she is not saying it right herself, so it makes me laugh. She is also really excited about having a sister and she really wants to have her name be Brinley. So she tells us that her name is Brinley all the time. Porter on the other hand really wants us to name the baby Rylee, Rylee is his favorite cousin. He will even sound out her name for us, just to make sure we know exactly what he wants. I keep telling him we can't do that because we already have such a cute cousin named Rylee and we love that she is the only one. But he doesn't care. He will probably always call the baby Rylee for all I know. I just love that he loves his cousin so much.

It amazes me to watch them grow and see them change. It overwhelms me with gratitude as I watch them all grow. What a blessing to have such wonderful kids. And even more a tremendous blessing that they are becoming so much more independent.