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January 30, 2007

Ethan's spaceship

Yesterday I brought down a big cardboard box we made into a house a few years ago - it's been sitting idle for a long time. Ethan and Maya pretended it was a spaceship, and took trips to different planets all day. Ethan was still going strong by evening, and this morning he went to Jupiter. All the way to Harmony he pretended we were driving around in our Jupiter-mobile (which can drive on top of gas, not ground), and he read a book to Linna, first in "Jupitonean" and then in English on each page.

He also wrote a story (with my typing help) about his travels yesterday. I'll post it later.

Posted by ktingey at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)

January 29, 2007

Meltdowns & math

Ethan doesn't have a lot of meltdowns, but it always catches me off-guard when he does. We didn't have a great weekend. Sunday we went to Mochitsuki at PCC, including the hour-long show. He enjoyed the taiko (and Linna LOVED the taiko), but he ended up getting very upset. One of his rare full-on meltdowns. Jeff had to carry him outside. Not that fun.

In other news (*BRAG WARNING*), last week he was reluctant to go to preschool. When I probed about it, he said the activities weren't fun anymore. I mentioned it to his teacher, and she said she'd try to watch him and maybe introduce some new activities. She did, and on Thursday he did this new abacus-like thing for doing math. Friday morning he was all excited to do it again... and apparently it's all he did on Friday, so that by the end of school on Friday, he had done every single addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problem that there was. Um, so much for that. But today he was still excited, because I guess Kristin told him about another new activity to do. Hope he doesn't run out!

Posted by ktingey at 10:36 AM | Comments (0)

January 17, 2007

Snow day

We woke up yesterday morning and the entire backyard was covered in snow. Ethan's school was closed, and Mya couldn't make it. So I took the day off. Karla and Jay invited us along on an outing to Clinton Park, which is the local playground that has a big grassy hill. Not so grassy yesterday. Before going there, we pulled the kids on sleds (me with Linna in the Ergo) down to Petite Provence on Division - my first time there, and it was quite good. Good workout getting there, too. Then on to the hill. Ethan had enjoyed being pulled along the streets, with the little ups and downs, but he only went once down the big hill. He was smiling, and he still smiled after he fell off near the bottom. But he didn't want to go again, and got increasingly upset - about his cold hands, his tummy hurting, and not wanting to leave the sled for Will and Anna. Eventually he agreed to leave the sled, and we took their jogging stroller so he didn't have to walk home. There's a good uphill bit right near the park, and I was sweating. So I'd push on for about a minute and a half, then rest a bit, then again. Ethan was having a ball, but I was dying. Then about a block and a half from home, Jeff pulls up in the car. He knew where we were, and thought we might need rescuing. He was right. So he volunteered to push Ethan the rest of the way, and I took Linna in the car. As I was putting her in the carseat, Jeff said, "Uh, Karen? Did you know the wheels are locked on the stroller?"

Duh.

Ethan continued to be volatile all day, so I tried to relax by cooking that chicken and green chile stew we've made once before, while Jeff played with the kids. Just like last time, I realized that of course we had far too much stew, so we called Molly to see if she wanted to come share. Turned out Lori and Andrew had invited everyone over for a potluck, since the potluck they were supposed to go to was canceled because of the weather. So we had a lovely evening with all of our favorite neighbors. The kids played together really well and ate at the kiddie table, and we had a pretty roaring good time at the grownup table. So at least the day ended on a good note.

Posted by ktingey at 01:02 PM | Comments (0)

January 12, 2007

Finally back

I've been out of town for approximately a million years. Actually just under 4 weeks, but that's a long time all the same! I didn't have the address to make blog entries with me, so I didn't make any and now I'm so behind.

I'll try to just hit a few Ethan highlights... he's an amazing boy. We were down in the Bay Area for a long time over the holidays, busily helping Erika and Mike, visiting Gammi, driving here and there. He got to play some games, and we went to the Monterey Aquarium, but mostly we did very little special for him. And he was incredibly good and cooperative and pleasant.

For example: Christmas morning. Erika and Mike and Dylan (my new niece) came home from the hospital around 7 pm on Christmas Eve. We were supposed to meet at their house at 10 am on Christmas to have breakfast and open all those pesky presents. We ended up not having breakfast until around 11, and presents after that, and he just patiently waited, occasionally peeking in his stocking or looking at the presents. Is that normal 4-year-old behavior? Maybe he enjoyed drawing out the anticipation, I don't know.

More later...

Posted by ktingey at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)