Highlights
- Calan takes piano to another level
- Basketball season starts
- Kids have adventurous visit to the plane museum
Calan
Calan continues to play the piano mostly on his own. He is obsessed with Minuet One, and on most days, the house is filled with him tinkering around with this song. As the days go by though, the tinkering (practicing) has evolved into the complete song; measure by measure, in-time, and correct note playing with both hands. Its been fun observing (and listening) to him work the song out by himself, with a few tips from Mama here and there. What really stood out though is when he got bored of just playing the song how it’s written and started exploring other ways to play it. One day, we heard him transpose the entire song (both hands) from G major to D minor… We commented that we couldn’t even do that without practicing hard at it for a bit!
Calan has also been putting his dexterity to use on the typing keyboard. With some help from online courses like Typer Island, Calan has been having some fun playing and learning to type. He also got some practice in his technology class at school. During his last class of the semester this month, he wrote a short story (snippet):
“Once upon a time there was a tree that had a monkey in it. His name was Rack. One time, Rack went on a trip with his family. They went to another jungle. They got there by going down the mountain at the edge of the jungle then followed the roads that led to the next jungle. But they got caught and were taken to the zoo and were put into a cage. They were trapped.”
To mix up some routines this month, Mama and Calan decided to hit the library once or twice a week for a “homework session”. Finding some distraction doing school work at home with Evan around, and a chance to work with someone new, the library offers a nice way to mix up his study time. There, he can work one-on-one with a volunteer high school student while Mama can peruse and take a breather for an hour.
The boys had quite an adventure one afternoon when they met up with their friends Augustine and Kai from school. They went to the WWII historical aviation museum, and loved it. After an attempt to eat at the much-too-crowded Airport Cafe there, the group attempted to go to In-n-Out. Only problem was, the van battery decided to stop working. The rest of the afternoon didn’t go as planned as we figured out how to get everyone home (with Dada at work), and pick up the van later that night. But… the boys really had fun together. Kids are like that in these situations. As long as they can be together with their buddies, and have a sense that the grown-ups will figure it all out, they have a good time. It become a story to talk about for days to come.
Calan had another Sky High birthday party this month, this time with neighborhood friend Carson. He had a really hard time keeping up with Carson and his other friends, as they moved swiftly around the complex. But that didn’t stop Calan from enjoying himself. He had a lot of fun, especially jumping into the big foam pit. Something he’d been a little unsure of in past visits to this place.
Notable quotes this month:
“What if I ate some soil and some sun and drank a bunch of water, then swallowed an orange seed? Then I could just reach in and pull out an orange for breakfast!”
“It’s time for the Crazy Lazy show with all personal commercials.” Heard while playing in bathtub.
Evan
Evan always amuses us with his toddler cuteness. As of late, when he gets upset, it’s really interesting to observe how he responds his situation of crisis. Here are two such examples:
One Wednesday afternoon, Evan was playing with Dada, Calan and Josiah in the backyard. Evan was shooting around with his little basketball. As it happened, his ball bounced into the pool, on top of the pool net and cover. Realizing the bummer of this, he threw a little bit of a tantrum. We all walked over to help him and he looked up at Josiah, and declared through a strained little voice, “I’m upset.”
A while back we put the boys’ really nice books on the very top shelf of the bookcase in Evan’s room. The idea was to help save and protect the most special books and reserve them only for quiet reading time with grown-ups. Well, Evan has always wanted to reach up there, but one night he tried to reach up to the top, standing on his chair. When he still couldn’t reach, he turned back and looked at Dada and said “Grrrr”. Then he got down and went to the middle of the room still looking at Dada and said, “I said ‘Grrrr’ to you because you put the books way up there.”
Evan likes to observe things and talk about them: One afternoon in the park, Dada was pushing Evan on the swing when another little girl came over a couple months older than him with her dad. We chatted for about five minutes while we both pushed our kids. The little girl eventually wanted to down. As she stopped and trotted off, her dad said nice to meet you and trailed after her. Evan then looked back at Dada and said “You are two dadas in the park.”
Both Evan and Calan got to go to Austine’s little brother’s 2nd birthday party this month. It was a Daniel Tiger themed party, so Evan felt right at home.