Our First Parent-Teacher Conference

Oh no! Was Abby a bad girl so we had to talk with the teacher about her behavior?

Nope. The daycare that Abby is in does three Parent-Teacher Conferences a year with each child and their parents. November got away from them, and from us for that matter, so we didn't do them at that time. The others are in February (last Thursday) and May (end of year).

We sat with the head teacher to talk about all of the things on the developmental checklist for her age that she has mastered, which is everything. We also talked about the things on the checklist for the next older group (8-12 months), and she has gotten some of those things down, but certainly not everything. We'll get there.

One weird thing was to hear that we would set goals for Abby for the coming months. I was relieved to hear we are setting goals for Abby's care, not for Abby.

Our goals are:

• Increase opportunities for fine and gross motor development
• Continue to nurture trusting relationships with caregivers
• Stimulate verbal and nonverbal language development (talking, reading, singing, signing)
• Provide ample time and opportunity to explore her environment in a safe manner
• Encourage self-regulation and self-soothing techniques
• Encourage independence and age-appropriate problem solving techniques
• Introduce sippy cup (bought this weekend) and encourage self-feeding; introduce finger foods (which we did this weekend!)

We started her on half-cheerios this weekend! She's still not completely sure about it, but we'll get there. She is not spitting them at us, so we call that the right path. She has tried to chew, but since she only has two teeth, it is a lot more gumming than biting. More than a few have ended up on her onesie or bib. (Should just be bib, but Daddy didn't know that Cheerios actually do have color in them - dark brown - when it lands on a white undershirt...)

Abby is also getting closer and closer to crawling. Last night at church she made about 9 inches of forward progress! She has mastered getting on her hands and knees, but has been pushing backwards across the carpet and hardwood floors. We have begun to close the baby gate already, just in case. We're going to see the family in St Louis this weekend. Hopefully Abby's cousin Ada, six months older, who has recently been moving toward walking from crawling, can be convinced to crawl a bit as a teaching tool for Abby! She learned a lot from a couple of hours with Chase, so four full days should get some good learning time!

Abby went Friday and participated in another study at UMD, but I will let Anny post about it.