Ok. It is just ridiculous that an entire month went by without a single post to the blog! It is definitely not for lack of something to write about! We’ve been busy!
I took on a new contract which initally was pitched as having an end-of-the-year end date, but the first milestone date was changed to Thanksgiving!! Huge difference in time/scope. I spent a lot of nights working late and a lot of mornings skipping activities with the girls. Tom has been (and continues) to rush the girls off in the mornings so I could be on a daily 9am call and sound professional (i.e., not have kids screaming and yapping in the background)….it’s taken its toll in so many ways.
But, the kids are finding time to smile…and make us smile! November was incredibly busy with visits to Legoland (and LA!), Tom’s half-marathon in SF, Heather’s birthday, adoption day celebrations for both K. and T., Tom’s birthday, my step-dad’s birthday, birthday parties for kiddie friends (Evie, Margot, and Rachel), Thanksgiving, Chanukah. It was non-stop.
To top it all off, Tom and I were both in a marathon training cycle which required huge chunks of weekend time (2-3-ish hour runs for each of us) each week (he just ran his marathon yesterday and I will run mine next weekend). I honestly don’t know how we managed to survive November.
The kids have been busy doing their Thing: growing up. Chloe is talking so much and she has such an amazing sense of humor. She just “gets” jokes by the intonation and inflection of speech! She also mimics the non-verbal stuff–head nodding/shaking/bobbing, hand gestures–it’s so much fun to talk to her! You can tell she is a thinker!
I always try to ask open-ended questions to encourage her to talk, so when I ask her how her day was, she starts off with an enumeration of the folks she saw that day: “teacher Al.ma, Drea (Teacher Andrea), Asher, Teo (Mateo), Willa, Aba (Ava), Kayla”. Then, she often tells you, with lots of nods, that her day was good! She is a very expressive talker!!
Oh, and she sings (as they all do!). Happy Birthday, Music Together Hello Song, ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle, Princess Princess (variant on Twinkle Twinkle), Ring Around the Rosies….
Now, Cameron…she is already beginning to read–little words, of course, and she still needs plenty of help, but she has a tremendous interest in learning. And she write and writes and writes and, as a result, is pretty good at writing all of her letters and numbers already.
She is also remarkably good at math! She already conceptually understands adding +1 to a number, and she often comes up with the correct answer to simple addition problems before Dylan does ( Dylan is 3 years older than you are, so how old will you be when he’s 11? And different variations of this type of question; simple drills like what’s 2+2, 3+3, 4+4…)!!
As for Dylan, we had his parent-teacher conference just before Thanksgiving and had no surprises: he is still slow to finish timed tasks (he did not complete one of his tests!), but he is reading well above grade-level and keeping pace in math (though he still needs more practice with “math facts” and word problems). Although he is not good about finishing his grade-level books, he will actually pick up and read Harry Potter.
There is lots that has been going on and I’ve been remiss in noting it all down! But when Dylan asks me what he was like at Cameron’s age or Chloe’s age and my memory comes back with a 404 (not found!), I’m reminded of why I’m writing this blog…and that I should get back to it! So, I will try to do so, picture by picture, bit by bit!
