Sunday, January 27, 2008

Spelling and Friends

Ethan is thoroughly enjoying his spelling. He laughs when I go to him and say, "Pop quiz!" He is rocketing though the lists I have and only gets irritated if he gets a word wrong. I wish I had enjoyed spelling as much as he does. I detested it growing up. My mother would drill me on words and my overriding thought was: "I hope this will be over soon."

We had friends from Massachusettes here this weekend so our child count doubled. Doran and Amory go to public school. We met them because their mom buys beads from Esther and me. They had never been to our house before although we've stayed at their house several times. It was a weekend fun fest. Ethan played on his DS with them. Ryan jumped on the trampoline with them. They all played troll together which seems to involve building castles out of the large blocks we have in the living room allowing three of the boys to hide behind them while the fourth one attacks the castle and its inhabitants with a pillow while grunting. Big fun for the 4 to 10-year-old set.

For me the perk was hanging out with Jeff, Doran and Amory's mom, and getting all four boys to help move things from the basement to the third floor so Esther and I can sort them. Jeanne got to spend the weekend studying for the silly social work exam that Connecticut is forcing her to take because it won't accept her Louisiana social work license. She claims this was fun. I have my doubts.

Now all the house guests are gone and a nice cup of cocoa is calling me. I am incapable of ignoring the call of cocoa while the wind is rattling my windows.

Friday, January 18, 2008

The Candy Shop & Current Goals

For the past two days the guys have been using all of Ryan's tools and a few other toys to create a pretend candy shop. I've been given several tours and have even been allowed to work the drill frozen lollipop maker.

They made up tour tickets and set up a counter at the doorway to Ryan's room from which they can sell their wares. Ethan realized that he ought to be collecting sales tax, so he's been practicing adding 6% to all the sales. He's found out that he can only easily figure out the tax if the sale is a whole dollar amount.

I went over some spelling words with Ethan yesterday and sailed right through the first two lists I had. He stumbled a bit on the third list because it has pen, pin, and pan which give him trouble. He told me that he's going to learn them by next week because he wants a new list. He asked me how many lists I had and I told him I have 40. He said he wants to finish all forty by the spring. He will, too.

Ryan is currently obsessed with the books Pirates Don't Change Diapers by Melinda Long and David Shannon (which is the second in a series by the same authors) and Radio Rescue by Lynne Barasch. The pirate book is a picture book and the rescue book is a true story about a boy who saves people using a ham radio. Ryan says he wants to learn Morse code. "I don't want to send messages. I just want to learn all the letters and numbers." I can't wait until we go back to Philadelphia so he try the telegraph key at the Franklin Institute. He's been there before, but I don't think the telegraph key made a big impression on him the first time.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Busy Day

They guys had quite the busy day today. Ethan went with Jeanne to her doctor appointment and then Esther and I took him and Ryan to the GNHH play group. That was a lot of fun. Ryan ran around like a nut, his favorite thing to do, and Ethan found some more kids who into Pokemon. Kati called while we were at play group and invited the guys over to her house to hang out with Kyle in the afternoon. After all that action, Ethan was a little overwhelmed. He had 2 meltdowns tonight. I think tomorrow will be a stay-at-home day.