It's MAGIC!

I just finished two days of training at work in a program called MAGIC. MAGIC stands for "Making A Great Impression on our Customers" and it was all about improving communication with people. The trainers emphasized that being "magical" is really about a way of life rather than just at work. It was focused on empathizing with people, being confident and treating the person you are communicating with as a priority.

I tried out some of the techniques on my calls this morning and I was amazed by how effective it was. More than half of the people I spoke with complimented me on how polite and helpful I was. I get compliments fairly frequently, but having so many was really different. I still have a lot of practice so that I have magic calls rather than tragic ones (I know, it's hokey... but it's funny, too. ;-D). It is a start, though.

Last night I was reading The Cat in the Hat with Caleb. He has progressed really well with his reading. He can sound out many 3-4 letter words. I had to help him, sometimes, to decide which vowel sounds to use, and he didn't like that "to" "too" and "two" all sound the same. I was really pleased overall, though. He's been learning a lot with reading lessons from Daniel.

At Church on Sunday, Caleb decided he wanted to work on writing. He wrote the letter "Z" and then asked me what words begin with "Z". I told him that I thought he could think of something. After a minute he said, "Zebra!" (Well, actually he says it "Zebwa".) He started sounding it out and said, "Zee" "Buh" "Wuh" and wrote on his paper "Zbw" I was pretty impressed with his deductive reasoning, even if he got the wrong answer. :-)

Kaiana is in a really loving mood right now. She is always running up to Daniel, Caleb or I and giving kisses. She also communicates very effectively. She says "Yeah" and "No" and will also shake or nod her head. I was counting and I believe Kaiana has 13 words/phrases that she says right now. It's really fun to hear her figure things out.