The Misses Watts: Genius talker, developing singer, soon-to-be reader, a new job, and 'home' work.

I was sick again this week. I made it all winter being completely healthy and then February hit and I've been sick ever since. So silly. I'm glad I made it through winter, though. I'll take it.

Besides being sick on Wednesday and Thursday, I worked on our bathroom remodel. We want to update both upstairs bathrooms, but we decided to start with the girls' bathroom because it's also the one people who come over use, and because I already had all the decorations for it (that's probably not true--but I have a lot).

So I painted the cabinet this week and we removed the old countertop. I was able to find a used granite countertop on our local Craig's-List-type ads (KSL) that was the exact right size for our current vanity. It was cheaper than refinishing the countertop with one of those kits from Home Depot, plus it came with the sink and the faucet! I was super excited to find it. We'll have to do some work to get the new countertop on, but I think it will look great when we're done. I will definitely post before and after pictures.

I also had a breakthrough with my writing this week, remembered to take Mira to preschool on both Monday and Wednesday (miracle!), and was offered a job 'teaching' an after-school creative writing club at a local high school. One which I can bring my kids to and get paid well. I'm excited to start doing that in the next couple weeks.

Steve got to play LOTR card game, too, with my brother and another friend. He was sick one day, but apparently his was food poisoning, poor guy. He interviewed for a new position at work last week, but didn't hear back about it, so he's thinking he didn't get it. I don't think he was invested in this position, so I don't think he's too disappointed, but I think he'll keep looking. He's pretty bored at his current job and he's so smart, he definitely needs his work to be challenging in order to not hate it. That and he likes to feel like he's contributing to the big picture. In a company of over 100,000 employees, it's hard to see your contributions making a difference.

The kids are doing great, too. Cecily is becoming quite the singer. I'd post a video, but they don't work in the emails and nobody seems to be able to figure out how to get into the blog to look at them. :)

Cecily napping with Snoopy.

Mira is loving preschool. She's excited to tell me what she did every time I pick her up. I look forward to her learning to read next year. I've tried to teach her, but she doesn't have the patience to work with me every day, nor does she think I know what I'm talking about. So kindergarten it is. She will be a great reader and her highly active imagination will love it.

Mira picked out this outfit herself. Including the blue hairspray on her pigtails. She should be interesting as a teen.

Emilia has been in the 'special education' program at school since preschool when she tested as having a lot of Aspergers tendencies. Most of the things they/I worried about were social, but she has to have an academic subject she sees the special ed teachers for in order to stay in the program, so they choose to give her help in math since that was the subject she was least good at. This last week, though, the special ed teacher called me to tell me that Emilia is doing so well that she didn't think she needed services anymore. I had a couple meetings with them, they did a bunch of testing, and the school psychologist observed her. I had to fill out a behavioral questionnaire and so did the psychologist. And at the last meeting we went over everything. It seems at home, I see her having hyperactivity and anxiety issues, but she's handling them well at school, so they gave me some ideas to help her cope at home. The IQ testing they did knocked the socks off the school psychologist, though. In the language portion, Emilia scored a 146, which is genius-level (less than one percent of test takers score that high). Her overall IQ score was 126 which is still in the 'above average' range. So we were able to discuss how to keep her challenged in the coming years, so she doesn't get bored, or become afraid to face challenging things. Hopefully I'll be able to advocate for her and add to the education at home. The school staff seemed very willing to work with us, too. All of them seemed rather taken with her (I can see why). :)