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July 27, 2006

Up, up, up

While Linna and I were in Boston, Ethan and Jeff took a trip to Tucson for Jeff's 15-year Up With People reunion. (We went to the 10-year one together, so long ago now... we weren't even married yet!) Jeff will have to describe the whole experience himself. Sounds like it was very busy, but a lot of fun. They had little kid activities that included learning several songs, which Ethan has been singing nonstop. He particularly likes to sing one that goes, "Un amigo baila baila baila baila! Un amigo baila baila baila baila!" Then there's a tear-jerker one about peace that he does quite beautifully. I didn't get to talk to them much while they were there, because they were so busy, but we did exchange a few text messages - in one, Jeff said that Ethan was about to perform so he'd call me later, which made me get a little teary for some reason. I guess because it seems like such a childhood rite, performing for your parents, and I missed the first one. And Jeff said he got choked up several times during the trip for various reasons.

The other song Ethan's been singing since he got home is the signature "Up With People" song, which is a very perky song. It goes, "Up, up with people, you meet 'em wherever you go...." etc., etc. But Ethan likes to stick an extra "up" in there, so he sings, "Up, up, up with people! You meet 'em wherever you go. Up, up, up with people! They're the best kind of folks we know..."

I know I talked about the multiplication thing, but he's also got this fascination with, um, negative numbers right now. It started because he asked one of us something like, "What's 3 minus 4?" and we explained a little bit about negative numbers. What astonishes me is how fast he can do those kinds of things. If you say, "What's 8 minus 10?" or "What's 10 minus 20?" he comes back with the answer immediately. How does he do that? Then we were making cookies yesterday, and the recipe was too big so we were just making a half. Not like he could figure out what half of 1 1/3 was, but he could do half of 4 eggs very easily.

Posted by ktingey at 09:02 AM | Comments (0)

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 03:00 PM | Comments (0)