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Powered by LifeType5/1 - Joy playing with even/odd dot cards. Didn't quite get the concept but sometimes was lucky, so I praised the correct answers. Then 6/2 - much more consistently correct.
5/1 - Jeremiah, watching the kids in karate class, copying them - doing punches from the "en guarde" position. Very cute!
Jeremiah claps every time someone says, "good job!"
5/2-4 - Jeremiah says, "Uh! Uh!" going "up" the stairs.
5/7 - We were walking home from karate and I saw a place in someone's yard where there was a pile of dirt spilled on the sidewalk from the landscaping. Faith was behind me and when she got to the place started yelling very excitedly for me to come see this cool thing. I'm thinking, "dirt is really that cool?" But I came anyway, and when I got there I looked closer. She was right! It was ants. A whole giant mass of ants, crawling all over one spot, looking like some spilled dirt. It was worth all her excitement! (Jonathan says to make sure to note that they were not army ants.) (More)
3/23 - I told Jeremiah the toaster was hot, and he held up his hand, palm facing, but not touching, and said, "hah".
3/25 - Jeremiah was whining about something, and Noah, to cheer him up, said, "Why cry, my pygmy fly?" It made me laugh anyway!
3/26 - JPD definitely says "hi" now, especially when people walk into the room. Grammy also taught him "high five" which is pretty fun. He said "hot" more, also. (More)
Got a bunch of spam comments and then when I was looking at posts, the boys pointed out that my last post was a month ago and I said "trip to DC goes in a separate post"... So here we go.
When we went into downtown to see the sights, we split up into smaller groups. Jonathan, having recently studied the beginning of our country, was excited to go see the original documents at the National Archives - the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the BIll of Rights. It was pretty neat to see, and we enjoyed it. But Jonathan and I think it would be pretty hard to wait in the longer lines that form during peak tourist days. Faith had decided to come with us because she wanted to be with me, but she was pretty bored by it because she has no context for it yet. (More)
2/15 - JPD walked up to me and hugged my knees. He now does this often.
2/19 - JDD quotes from The Incredibles, with an Indian flair: "This is your automated captain speaking. Would you like more samosas?"
2/24 - JDD "What's the difference between lo mein and chow mein, and why isn't there a high mein?" (More)
1/18 - JPD tongue cluck noise
1/16 - JDD riddle:
Toothless I bite,
Voiceless I mutter,
Legless I move,
Mouthless I stutter,
I am nearly indestructible,
though walls will stop me.
What Am I?
(answer at the end)
2/1 - JPD upper left 2nd incisor
2/5 - JPD point at wii, shake head "no"
2/7 - Faith experimenting with Joy to the World on piano. Playing the first sentence a few times, then backwards (up the scale) with perfect rhythm and intervals.
2/10 - JPD upper right 2nd incisor
2/12 - I reminded Joy to wash her hands when she came out of the bathroom. She replied, "I not love washing hands."
2/12 - Joy, "I made Faith a present, and Faith made I a present!"
2/12 - JPD sign please - open hand pat chest
2/14 - Faith finished RightStart A
Observed about Jeremiah: He will take a short rest on his own initiative; lying on his stomach on the floor, or relaxing on his back in a beanbag chair. It's usually not more than 30-60 seconds, but it's notable because I don't remember any of the other kids doing it.
12/4 - F putting on chapstick. Joy recalls, "Last time my lips sting. Now my lips better."
12/6 - JDD, in a growly voice, with a straw stuck in his teeth and the other end in a glass of water, "I am the savage, saber-toothed mosquito!"
12/6 - JPD upper right primary incisor
12/7 - Noah, "You can use anything for dress clothes. It just won't look as nice."
12/8 - JPD 9 steps to Mommy
by 12/19 - JPD record 11 steps, and 24 seconds standing up.
12/20 - JDD realizes that the words to Deck the Halls are not "Don we now our gray apparel."
12/23 - I'm upstairs with JPD on toilet.
Joy, "Mommy, come down here."
"Is it an emergency, or do you just want me there?"
"It emerdenee."
[I come down, naked baby on hip, wondering if the cider is boiling over, or what]
"Guy come in here."
[yikes! Don't see anyone, oh, maybe just UPS man]
Then I see our friend on the porch peering in.
I was very happy with the way Joy handled the situation. She didn't freak out when she saw someone, but she also made sure I knew it was not just a whim of hers for me to come down.
12/23 - It's all how you look at it. Joy's take: "That nice day. My 'pecial time." It was 32 and rainy as we walked to the bank. But we found a quarter in the slush, and she got a lollipop at the bank, and we looked at the water pouring into the grates, and she had her special time with Mommy.
~12/25 - JPD upper left primary incisor
1/4 - The fire in the pellet stove went down some, and I looked at the thermometer to see why. I exclaimed, "It's toasty now! Seven degrees." Jonathan doubtfully replied, "Negative seven isn't all that toasty..." Me, "No, positive seven!" JDD, "Oh! That is toasty!"
1/6 - JPD walked 21 feet.
1/11 - The boys had their first karate test. It was very interesting to watch. For the first rank up, from white to yellow, it is "only" two hours long. All testers are in the dojo together, and they do much of the same moves at first. Lots of pushups, jumping jacks, sit ups. Lots of repetition. It required concentration and endurance. It was intense, hard work. As time went along, I could see red cheeks, sweating brows. After an hour, the current white and yellow belts got to rest in the meditation position while the upper belts did more advanced work. However, after a while that turned out to be a test of endurance also. I think if I stay in that position too long, my feet fall asleep! They got a water break at the hour mark, and then a few more after that. Jonathan commented that it wasn't fair that they got more water breaks than the more advanced kids. But everyone says the test is harder the more advance you are. Jonathan's concentration and determination never wavered. Noah did the best I've ever seen him (sometimes he gets sloppy) and he only figeted towards the end. They did a great job and they earned their yellow belts! (Sorry about the picture, our camera puts orientation info in it but the blog didn't read it and I do not want to redo it.)
1/12 - JPD went down the kitchen stool steps successfully. Also that same day, he got down off the bed purposefully by scooting himself backwards, tummy down feet first until he slid off.
He is now definitely a walker. Still holding his arms up for balance.
1/17 - JPD has a pincer grasp now.
11/8 - It was gusty and the maple seeds were being blown off our big tree by the thousands. It was such an amazing sight! The little helicopters were fluttering everywhere, even swarming like a host of grasshoppers or little birds. The grand picture was the swarming, and then if you focused on one little seed, you could see it twirling and swirling up and down like a little hummingbird. It was such a neat thing to watch!
11/9 - JPD first step - JDD saw it
11/11 - JPD climbed up the stairs all the way with me behind
11/12 - JPD climbed up the stairs all the way by himself
He's done it several times with and without people behind him and he's had a few tumbles (with and without people behind him.) (More)
The boys (and Heather has enjoyed it too - I haven't gotten to it yet) have really been enjoying Khan Academy this last week. It is an educational tool, with lots of questions to test you on different skills. Jonathan is especially motivated by the reward badges it gives you when you do certain activities. It does a good job of remembering how well you have done on previous problems to decide whether you need more practice or not. It also has helpful videos to teach you new concepts.
Noah was working on some fraction problems (identifying the numerator and denominator). He had gotten three problems right and couldn't figure out why the fourth was wrong, and so I asked him if he had watched the video. He hadn't, but had just guessed, and the first three has asked him what the numerator was, and so he had picked the first number. He didn't notice the question changed on the fourth problem. I suggested that perhaps he should watch the video, although I think he didn't, but did see that the question was slightly different, and so then did the bottom number instead.... I guess we will see as time goes on whether this form of experimenting/learning is useful, or if it teaches you interesting things that end up not really working out. (More)
I'll take this opportunity, home from church with two sick kids, to post my notes.
10/19 - JDD, "Most fun things are spoiled if you HAVE to do them." I forget the context of his quote but it reminded me of my thought at the harvest supper. The middle and high school youth groups were the servers for the meal, and they did a great job and looked like they enjoyed it. But then I saw one of them asking Barbara to sign off on the community service hours and it got me thinking. I'm disappointed that the kids are required to do some number of community service hours. The requirement takes away the free service part of it and basically makes it forced unpaid labor - slavery! Now I understand that sometimes it takes persuasion or force to get you to do something at first, but then hopefully you can see what a joy it is to make people's lives better. I would think that even if you enjoyed a particular service, there is something taken away from the freedom in it to have to keep track of the hours. But at any rate, these kids are making the best of their requirement and enjoying it anyway!
10/19 - JPD rolled back to front.
10/25 - JPD 8 mo visit. 20.5 lb, 27.25"
10/26 - JPD has been saying "hi" (sounds like "ha") and waving this month, and today he said, "bye".
10/27 - Joy, "I really like my song blanket. It's really fun, with music."
10/28 - Faith counts from 900-1000. Then continued, taking 10 minutes to get to 1100, then another 40
minutes to get to 1200.
10/28 - JPD gets 2nd tooth. (bottom L incisor)
10/30 - JPD says, "da, da" for dirty diaper (Not necessarily repeated - da,da is a common word for him.)
11/2 - JPD climbs up two stairs, Faith saves him.
11/3 - JPD climbs half way up the stairway, Mom spotting. One time he sat down, one time he slipped. At the
triangle threshold, he had difficulty. After some work, decided he was done and Mom carried him up the
rest of the way.
Jeremiah has been a bit wheezy with this cold but of course it's the weekend so we can't call the doctor. Joy was coughing a lot last evening, but has not wheezed. She seems much better this morning after I let her sleep late.
9/13 - A Friday. Jonathan had been asking me if he could read Harry Potter for a while. I told him I needed to talk to Daddy about whether we thought he was ready, but I kept forgetting. The strategy that worked was asking me in Daddy's presence so I didn't have time to forget. So the decision was "yes, but you have to finish all your school and chores first." Immediately after completing those in record time, he ran to the library. Jonathan proceeded to read the first Harry Potter book in four hours. He started book four by Saturday evening. In these first two days, whenever he talked about the story, he kept calling Harry "Arthur". Daddy made him take a break from the constant reading on Sunday, but Monday (after school) he was at it again. He finished the whole series the next Saturday 9/21. So that's an average of a book a day.
9/16 - Jonathan whistles the Imperial March from Star Wars while reading Harry Potter. (More)
Faith had a blast at Star Island with Grammy and Papa.
7/25 - JDD, explaining why he likes to use a certain spoon for his breakfast cereal, "That spoon
is special to me, because Grammy gave it to me for Christmas last year."
7/28 or 29 - Joy had a cold and I gave her 1 or 2 nebulizer treatments. (Putting this in so I can
keep track because now I wish I had written in other ones.)
7/30 - Noah lost his upper right 2nd incisor.
8/3 - F: "I like brothers, I just don't like when they're annoying." (More)
Having a dad in the fire department is educational in more than just fire safety:
5/17 - Jon is called to an accident "involving motor vehicle vs. moose"
5/18 - Jonathan reads about moose and siberian tigers on wikipedia
~5 - Joy says "owee here" = outta here
5/20 - jpd 17 lb on our scale
5/20 - After bikinh home from his ipiano lesson: Noah: "Mom, I fell. The chain got off all the gears. So I put it back on. The handlebars got crooked from the wheel, too."
5/21 - We have a game on the Kindle that involves both a princess and a knight. Faith was talking about it and called it the princess game. After listening to her description, Jonathan said, "Oh, you mean the knight game?"
5/22 - I have more to say about attention spans a little later, but here is one example. Joy peeled garlic for 20 minutes while I was making dinner. (More)
So last week I was worn out with the extra work that unexpected messes bring. Today I'm tired but happy about it.
Yesterday, Jon left very early to go on the church men's retreat. Our morning at home started out pretty badly (bickering/fighting) and the boys had to go run around the house in the rain (10 times for Noah, 20 for Jonathan). But that did its job and the morning chores got done well after that. Then was lunch, afternoon chores, special times, not too eventful (which is good!).
Then, the really good parts started! Jonathan had been wanting to make some French bread, and I suggested he make some for his youth group mock sleepover that night. So, Jonathan got out my Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. This was his first attempt at making bread by hand, but he had read the directions thoroughly. His kneading was pretty vigorous ("What's that banging?" I thought from the other room.) but he did a great job. He started the first rise at 3pm. I was surprised that he put the dough to rise in a cool place, but he insisted that's what the directions said. He was right. Then as I read through, I realized there was no way it was going to be done before his 6:30 start time. French bread takes a VERY LONG TIME! So he made graham cracker, chocolate, marshmallow treats. (More)
Thursday morning, we wake up to find mouse droppings and other evidence all over the kitchen. Result: big kitchen scrubdown.
Friday morning, Noah wakes up to find that the silly putty he fell asleep with is now melted into his pants, sheets, and blanket. Result: big fabric scrubdown.
This morning, the boys wake up with pink, swollen, itchy faces. It turns out they have been making Indian bows and arrows with poison ivy vines for the bowstrings. Result: big boy scrubdown.
(We're still in the middle of that. I haven't yet gone out to spray the loads of poison ivy that turns out to be in their fort area. And who knows how much poison oil they've tracked all over the house...)
I really hope that tomorrow is a day of rest.