HK Twins: Six Times Over

We may be 2 months into their 6th year but not too much has changed. Both are still running the gamute of testing boundaries. Five was all about understanding the world around them. With 6 on the horizon, they are now questioning things more and more and their interests are starting to blossom. At 6 they are now in kinder thanks to the public education systems cut offs of birthdays. Could they have started Kinder last year or was now the right timing to hold them back.

Lochlan is already blossoming in kinder, at the end of his last year of preschool he was already showing great interest in reading. He was grasping all of the sight words by the end of summer and now that he’s well into kinder, working on building word sounds. His interest in math has also grown and learning about animals and how things work. His abliity to take numbers and then correlate them to activities or his surroundings is great. What’s amazing is his desire to help others with their work. Although teaching him when and where he’s supposed to help is a new challenge.

Compassion is still his strength in the classroom and at home with friends. Our little rule enforcer is still going strong but he’s starting to grasp the notion that some rules don’t have be for everyone. Another obstacle he’s learning about is when to tell on someone and when to just let it all go. Teaching that line fo when to tell and not to tell has been a challenge. The basic lesson of only telling when you are hurt or someone has done something really bad but then there are those gray lines. Right now we are just focused on teaching how rules have their moments of their importance. 

Lochlan has grown over the past 3 years of speech therapy. He currently on break while he adjusts to a new school and new schedule. But he is still pushing himself, especially with his first moment on stage in the school musical “The Wizard of Oz” back in November. He loves being on stage. What was interesting is to see he had all of the choreography for the show down to a “T”. Which was the final nail in the coffin to sign him and his sister in dance classes in January. Margot was very scared to get on that stage at first. The moment she walked onto the stage that fear just lit of up into eagerness to perform. She did have moments of watching the action on stage but halfway through first performance she was on queue for the rest of the show. Am I bragging, well of course I am bragging.

Margot made the move to kinder easily. All of our concerns for both of them just melted the first week of school. Margot made besties right off the bat, while Lochlan had a girl posse and boy posse’s by the end of the second week. Margot still thrives on all the social aspects at school but has shown she needs help in staying focused when it comes to learning. There is so much of me in her and I  do worry a little that she might have ADHD or disleyxia like I did at her age. These coming years will be the time when all will shed light. Helping her through the coming challenges will be key in this next chapter.

She’s still a strong swimmer and it’s truly killing me to keep her away from the pool. The parent pressure is still there and not making it easy. Her brother is also showing sportsmen qualities as well. I was all ready to sign the two of them up to play little league in the spring. I was just about pull the trigger to signup and then came the reality of little league bounderies. The downside of sending the twins to a preschool across the border leads to the problem of baseball league boundaries. So while all of their friends are play baseball together they’re stuck on a league where they know, no one. I had hoped that some of the new kinder classmates might be in the same league and sadly again, a darn line separates them from playing together. I don’t remember these lines being drawn so hard when I was a kid.

Six is going to be a fun ride for these two. Paley had a great year when she tuned six. Granted the twins have 6 months. What is more interesting is seeing the strengths that all three of them share and while some strengths are stronger than others in each of them. With Paley striving to find her identity at 10, I am not looking forward to the day when we have two 10 year olds struggling to find their identity. Similar books but each so different. As a child of family of three kids, I am aware of how these three will split one day. Keeping those similarities still afloat is going to be hard. For now, lets bask in Six!