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July 06, 2006
Fun 4th
Erika was up for the long weekend, which was fantastic. We went blueberry picking on Monday (Jeff had to work!), which Ethan really enjoyed. He loves blueberries. We went to a farm on Sauvie Island, and in about 40 minutes picked 4 pounds of blueberries. It was more about the process than the results, of course - Ethan liked walking among the bushes and finding blueberries at his level, trying them out to see which bush had the best-tasting blueberries. Jeff made us blueberry pancakes the next day, and then we froze a lot of them. We're picking from own bushes right now, too, but they're small yet.
Erika went home midday on the 4th. We went to a lovely barbecue at Leah and Masa and Hana and Zoe's house (from our little co-op preschool). They have a two-level plastic pool from Costco, and the kids just went nuts for it. They were splashing, throwing balls, chasing each other, jumping in it... it's amazing no one was hurt, as there were about 10 kids, mostly 4-year-olds, all squeezed into the top level of this thing.
Later that evening, Jeff and Ethan headed down to the waterfront for fireworks. Linna and I stayed home - Linna slept the whole time, and I puttered around cleaning the house. I know, I know - but it made me happy. Jeff and Ethan called partway through, and Ethan sounded so happy and excited. They found a space on a pier on the east side of the Willamette, and had a great view. As Ethan has repeatedly said, "First there was one... then two... then a HUNDRED!" I've never been a huge fan of fireworks, but I do have vivid memories of going up on the roof of our house in our pajamas to watch them. I think Ethan will have fond memories of this one.
Brag time... Ethan has turned his attention to math a bit. He asks us math problems all the time, and loves to figure them out for himself too. He actually gets multiplication. I honestly don't know how this came about... I guess he asked us one, like "what's 2 times 3?" So I explained that it's 3 two times, or 3 + 3, which he already knows. And he really gets it. Today he was trying to figure out how many hours in a day, and Jeff was helping him by asking how many numbers on the clock, and how many times the hands go around. So he said it was 12 + 12, and went from there. Then he wanted to know what would make 25, so I said 11+14. Jeff said, "Also 5+5+5+5+5!" and Ethan immediately said, "So that's 5 times 5! 5 x 5 is 25, and 5 x 4 is 20!"
I do worry that... I don't know, he shouldn't have to think about this kind of stuff yet. But he is so pleased with himself that he gets it, he wants to play math all the time.
Posted by ktingey at July 6, 2006 03:00 PM