Milestone Minutiae

After ice skating lessons where Luke refused to look at his teacher for a couple of weeks, I wasn't sure how his try-out-day at Spanish school would go. Since Emmett would be there I hoped it would be better. As it turns out, he had a great time! So we're signing him up, and this summer I'll have only one kid for three hours a day, three days a week. Weird!

It's worth noting that the longest-running nickname for Henry has been "Chirpy." He squeaks, chirps, and squeals when he wants something. He's also been having fun taking empty sippy cups and screwing the lid on and off over and over again. After practicing this for a while, it's no wonder when he got his hands on the bottle of glucosamine pills for the dogs, that he immediately opened it and dumped hundreds of pills all over the floor. In other Henry news, he is perfectly capable of climbing in and out of the wagon all by himself, and he can climb the ladder into the play structure (but isn't really able to climb down alone).

#1 and #2 almost came to blows arguing about who got to first tell the other about some imaginary Rube-Goldberg type devices, how they would work, and what they would do (in agonizing, improbable detail).

Today Emmett asked me "How many thirds does it take to make a half? It's ok if the answer has a fraction in it." We walked (verbally) through how to answer the question - he seemed to follow it. I thought it was fun because one of the most commonly asked questions on a math e-mail list I read is how to create real-world problems that involve division with a fraction. When I asked him, he said he asked because he was thinking about our slide - it has two bumps that divide it into three equal sections, and he was sitting half-way up.

...walking around the house holding phones up by his neck. ...throwing cute little tantrums where he sits kicking his feet and yelling (but not very loud), or flops on the ground and kicks his legs. These are definitely tantrums of frustration - usually when I move him away from something he wants, or won't hold him immediately, or when he can't physically do something he's trying to do. ...climbing all the way up the slide into the playhouse, and climbing up the ladder successfully, too. ...climbing to the top of the couch to look out the front window.

While David ran and recovered from San Diego's Rock and Roll Marathon, I took the kids to Sea World. Notable moments: Henry thinks dolphins say "woo woo!" Also, today when I was talking about dolphins and whales, he looked up and pointed. Was he remembering that they jump out of the water, or was that completely unrelated? Luke reports that his favorite thing from the first day was when the pilot whale got us wet. (This after he cried a little and I was afraid he was going to have a major fit at the time it happened.) When I asked Luke what we should do first the next time we go, he said he wanted to feed the dolphins again. They've improved the dolphin feeding - now you sit with a trainer and get to feed and touch a dolphin without trying to get one to notice your fish in a sea of outstretched arms holding fish. The downside is that you have to get in line pretty early, but I'll take it. Emmett rode Shipwreck Rapids with David, they both got drenched, and E

In piano lessons, Emmett has learned to play an accompaniment part for Amazing Grace in several keys, and one version (in C) that uses 7th chords. Practicing today, I asked him to pick a version to play. He wanted to play in the key of D, but with the 7th chords, so I said, "Go for it." Though he has these pieces pretty well memorized, but struggled a bit to figure out exactly where to put in the 7th chords. I don't remember exactly what I said trying to help, but he answered with, "But it's in D, so G is A!" It took me a beat to figure out what he was saying - that is not how my brain naturally works. When I told David the story, he didn't really understand what the point was, because that is exactly how his brain works.