The Kavanaugh Report

As a Montessori parent it is important for me that we are offering opportunities for my children to learn through their senses. While babies will mostly get what they need just by being in our homes, it is sometimes fun to offer specific opportunities to explore specific sensory experiences. Babies are often working on their visual sense in addition to their other senses. 

Now that Nora, at 4-months-old, is past the sleepy newborn phase, she is becoming much more interested in toys. Things are holding her attention for longer and she's looking to be engaged. 

I'm flirting with a dangerous line...the line between being scheduled and over scheduled. This post comes to you at 4:49 a.m. as I nurse Nora. In fact, it's a safe bet that any post you've read on this blog in the last two months has been written, edited, or scheduled during the middle of the night. {insert joke about the declining quality of the writing, because I'm too tired to think if one} This isn't because Nora is a particularly bad sleeper, because she really isn't. It's just that life is that scheduled that this is where blogging fits right now. From the moment I wake up, until the moment I crash into bed, I feel like I have something I need to be doing. Between the kids, work, my relationship and maybe a tiny social life, I feel like I've built a house of cards.  And a lot of the time I really like what I'm doing, don't get me wrong. But, I'm starting to feel the pinch of being a work-at-home mom. Starting to feel lik

Where has the time gone? I blinked and Nora grew up.  Nora is just a dream. Seriously, she makes me so happy just by being here. She has her crabby moments but overall she's just a happy, lovey baby.  I'm a couple days late on this update so I could include her stats. Nora is 14 pounds even, and 24.25 inches (so slightly smaller than Henry was at this age.) She wears size 2 diapers, and mostly 3-6 month clothes, although some of her pants are still 0-3 months. She still has big blue eyes and light spikey hair.  This month, Nora has decided to be awake. She went from 5-7 hour stretches a night to between 3-5 hours. She also is spending more and more time awake at night -- so she will get up but not go back to sleep for an hour or two after waking. Napping during the day is still pretty much the same -- mostly 40 minutes long three times a day and the occasional long nap.  Nora is still exclusively breastfed. She is still a huge sna

Please note that this post was written toward the beginning of our Montessori journey. I no longer recommend this way of letter learning, nor do I find trays like this necessary from a Montessori perspective. This isn't to say that none of these could be used in a Montessori environment, but these are Montessori inspired and not often found in traditional toddler environments. - Nicole, 2018 Letter P trays! These were fun and reminded me how much a simple practical life tray can be enjoyed when just one more step is added.  The first tray we did this week was wet pouring. But instead of just using pitchers, I added a funnel for the first time. This changed the process and the kids really had to concentrate on the amount of water they were pouring into a vase.  This was by far Henry's favorite work this week. I often found him working on pouring and filing up vases. The second tray this week was another practical life -- scooping peas. This time,

Today is October 15 -- Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.  Today, I remember.   I remember the joy, the anxiety, the worry, the anticipation, the loss. These 4 babies are never far from my mind but today I will take time to think about each one and their story. While each pregnancy ended, none of them were the same. They each have their own story .  Today, I grieve.  I grieve for the babies that I never got to hold. I grieve for the unanswered questions. Were they boys or girls? Would they have a killer pout? Brown eyes? Easy births? Easy going or particular? I'll never get these answers on Earth. I don't get to hear their voices, to see them smile, to hug and kiss them. Today, I celebrate 4 lives.   I celebrate because for brief moments my children were on earth. They existed. And I believe they are waiting for me. They were not made up. They were some figment of my imagination, they were not just two lines on some

Please note that this post was written toward the beginning of our Montessori journey. I no longer recommend this way of letter learning, nor do I find trays like this necessary from a Montessori perspective. This isn't to say that none of these could be used in a Montessori environment, but these are Montessori inspired and not often found in traditional toddler environments. - Nicole, 2018 Another week down at tot school! Letter O was not my favorite to put together, but I think it came out alright.  The first tray was a combination of science, art, and practical life -- color mixing to make the color orange. I placed to small pitchers of water -- one yellow and one red on either side of a small cup. Then I included a 1 ml syringe. The children could then use only the syringe to suck up water and combine it to make the color orange in the small cup.  This was by far Henry's favorite and the most used at co-op. I encouraged experimentation with the colors

Montessori tot school co-op is back! I was so happy that the families that were involved in the co-op were interested in returning again this year! I've been getting a lot of questions about co-op and how it is run, so I wanted to answer the most frequently asked questions. How many kids?  Right now, we have 7 preschoolers between 3.5 and 4-years-old, and 5 of their siblings -- ranging from a couple months old to almost 2. This is put absolute maximum number of people.  How do you handle siblings?   We have a "baby room" where one of the moms watches all of the siblings. Last year, they were all in the room with us, but it has just gotten too crowded and hard to manage the babies and the older kids.  We do have two toddler-age siblings and they will come and go into the classroom. They may not make it the whole hour, but there is work that they can do in a modified way. I leave it up to their moms to determine where they should be. The oth