Things are going along well here. The weather is transitioning from spring towards (soon) summer. We've had some really nice days, and Emily and I are both vowing to try to walk more. This has been a slightly lighter week for me than in the past. I have a guest teacher for one class and was able to recycle materials for another class. So things are a little better. However, I never seem to get as much work done as I wish to.
Eva and Eli and Sam have all been outside a lot more lately. In the afternoon they often go in front of the library here and play with other kids. Eva and Eli, of course, idolize Sam, and laugh with him a lot. Today they had a great time chasing a ball kicked around by an older kid. It was fun to watch all three playing together. Eva kept saying "ball, ball, ball." It sounded like "bahhl, bahhl, bahhl." There's a cherry tree outside that is dropping cherries now (they're about dime sized, and people do eat them), but part of our job was also to stop the kids from eating the gnarly cherries on the ground. Eva is crawling up on our table a lot, which always freaks us out a little.
Coming up in the next week are: taxes, sometime medical reimbursements (we have a few more months), some other academic-ish projects, and so on.
I'll try to add pictures soon. I hope everyone is well and we'll try to keep in good touch.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
And a recent conversation
From a couple of weeks ago...
Yesterday I showed Sam a "Leap Frog" video on math. Mostly I hoped it would help him review his numbers through ten, but the video also went through basic math (addition, subtraction, etc.). A while later he was playing with some plastic golf balls he has and Emily started quizzing him:
Emily: Sam, how many balls do you have?
Sam: One... Two... Three...
Emily: You have four [sounds a little frustrated]
Sam: [exultant] Four!
Jonathan: Sam, if you take two balls and add two more, how many do you have? [showing him]
Sam: Three!
Jonathan: No, look, see it's four.
Jonathan: And now if I take two balls away...
Sam: That would not be good!
Jonathan: No, wait, I mean if you have four and for some reason you give two to someone else...
Sam: That is not good!
Jonathan: [finishing sentence] that's "subtraction"
Sam: [gleefully] ubtraction!
Jonathan: "Subtraction," remember, like the video...
Anyway, it went on like this for a while. It was a pretty entertaining conversation. That's the news from here.
Yesterday I showed Sam a "Leap Frog" video on math. Mostly I hoped it would help him review his numbers through ten, but the video also went through basic math (addition, subtraction, etc.). A while later he was playing with some plastic golf balls he has and Emily started quizzing him:
Emily: Sam, how many balls do you have?
Sam: One... Two... Three...
Emily: You have four [sounds a little frustrated]
Sam: [exultant] Four!
Jonathan: Sam, if you take two balls and add two more, how many do you have? [showing him]
Sam: Three!
Jonathan: No, look, see it's four.
Jonathan: And now if I take two balls away...
Sam: That would not be good!
Jonathan: No, wait, I mean if you have four and for some reason you give two to someone else...
Sam: That is not good!
Jonathan: [finishing sentence] that's "subtraction"
Sam: [gleefully] ubtraction!
Jonathan: "Subtraction," remember, like the video...
Anyway, it went on like this for a while. It was a pretty entertaining conversation. That's the news from here.
Updates
I meant to post this last week:
These weeks have been a big adjustment, but hopefully things are coming together. This week I taught a cohort of pastors, which was fun, but also takes more energy (I have to supply a bit more of the content, and there's a wider range of subjects). I think it will be a good experience, but I'm still finding it a bit of a struggle to get everything done.
I have a backlog of pictures I am putting up. I really like my little camera and have taken it to some fun places. I forget sometimes how far we have come in terms just of getting around and knowing a bigger swath of our little world. The museum trips were fun and I think they'll be even better as the kids get older. Going anywhere still requires two adults, but eventually things will get better.
The babies are both very entertaining lately. They can say more signs, are showing improvement as walkers and climbers, and can do more things. They both do the baby "rocking" dance. Eva has a lyrical squack she does. Eli's sounds are mostly in the "baba" "dada" family (banana, bala, baba, etc.). They are both pretty good eaters and have little tummies. Sam was always hard to feed, but these two seem a little easier.
Sam is coming along also. He's even more into dinosaurs lately. He now knows a half dozen and has seen several dozen different ones. We're using little dinosaur toys as weekly bribes. He's now had his third piano lesson. He can play do-re-mi and is singing a little bit better. I think it will be a while before he can do much, but it's encouraged us to put a little more music into our lives. This is a fun stage, because kids move in leaps and mini-revolutions at this age.
These weeks have been a big adjustment, but hopefully things are coming together. This week I taught a cohort of pastors, which was fun, but also takes more energy (I have to supply a bit more of the content, and there's a wider range of subjects). I think it will be a good experience, but I'm still finding it a bit of a struggle to get everything done.
I have a backlog of pictures I am putting up. I really like my little camera and have taken it to some fun places. I forget sometimes how far we have come in terms just of getting around and knowing a bigger swath of our little world. The museum trips were fun and I think they'll be even better as the kids get older. Going anywhere still requires two adults, but eventually things will get better.
The babies are both very entertaining lately. They can say more signs, are showing improvement as walkers and climbers, and can do more things. They both do the baby "rocking" dance. Eva has a lyrical squack she does. Eli's sounds are mostly in the "baba" "dada" family (banana, bala, baba, etc.). They are both pretty good eaters and have little tummies. Sam was always hard to feed, but these two seem a little easier.
Sam is coming along also. He's even more into dinosaurs lately. He now knows a half dozen and has seen several dozen different ones. We're using little dinosaur toys as weekly bribes. He's now had his third piano lesson. He can play do-re-mi and is singing a little bit better. I think it will be a while before he can do much, but it's encouraged us to put a little more music into our lives. This is a fun stage, because kids move in leaps and mini-revolutions at this age.
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