Daniel's development

Dear James, Daniel and Emily

So we have begun to see some real changes in Daniel this summer. Some for the better, some for the worse. But overall he has really begun to grow up into his own person, and as a result I am far less concerned about his being able to handle preschool. To set the picture, in the spring at his annual check up we were given a reference for him to attend speech therapy. At that time, while physically he was growing out of toddler stage, emotionally he was still very much a toddler. He was very clingy to us, sticking around us, even if James was off doing something. His potty training was progressing but was very subject to a string of bad days. And his speech was not good. So most of his communication was through gestures and us feeding him lines and words.

Well here we are, roughly a month from his entering preschool and he has really grown up. His speech is improving by leaps and bounds, to the point where we can get him to say what he wants most of the time without feeding him the phrase, just the words when he doesn't have them. Physically, while he still hasn't grown a lot (all of our children are on the small side oh well no NFL contracts in our future) he has really gained a lot of coordination. In the spring when he was playing (or practicing really) indoor soccer he was as likely to trip over his own feet as anything else. And his run was kind of a slow, small step mincing kind if gait. Now he runs with confidence and is far less likely to trip over his own feet. And his confidence around other kids has also grown considerably. The YMCA athletic director was commenting to me on Saturday how much he has changed over the course of the summer.

One of the bad/good manifestations of how he is growing is his interactions with James, and it is really throwing James for a loop sometimes. Daniel has begun to be more physically aggressive with James, more likely to initiate a wrestling match than passively letting James just kind of throw him around. And when it comes to toys he is far more likely to assert himself and say that such and such toy is his, and refuse to let James play with it. As Kim noticed yesterday, Daniel is just more ornery towards James now, and James is a little thrown off. James has been used to not just being the boss but also having to be a lot more gentle with Daniel, well those days are mostly past.

Unfortunately Daniel is also displaying this assertion in negative ways. Really testing his boundaries as far as behavior. and occasionally he will do little things to Emily that we have to jump on right away. I guess since it has been about 3 years since James was in the same mode we had kind of forgotten to keep up the discipline. And I am afraid he is a little worse as far as behavior because he doesn't get the same consistent out of home discipline that James got from being in Day Care for so many years. I am confident we will get there, just that we have to be on him more than we have been.