Holiday Traditions

We spent yesterday engaged in some holiday readiness exercises. Larkin was very excited to make popcorn and cranberry garlands and spent about 4 hours working on them with great focus. I worked along with her about half that time while Finn scrambled about our feet eating all the fallen bits of popcorn.

When I retired my needle and thread, Larkin asked me to read to her while she worked. Expecting her to choose some festive, holiday-related book, I was somewhat surprised when she chose "History!" We've been reading a young person's adaptation of Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States and Larkin is hooked. She chose the chapters on World War II and Civil Rights, so we had detailed, cheery discussions of racism and the Holocaust while making Christmas decorations. The next chapter is on Vietnam which has been getting lots of lip service in our house recently, so she's pretty excited about that.

Our last Christmas tree was a glorious live giant sequoia which, unfortunately, didn't survive our dry summer. Now that we know we need to water it a couple of times in its first few dry seasons, we wanted to replace it with another one this year. There was only one giant sequoia left at the co-op, and it was a somewhat small and spindly specimen which clearly needed a good home. Larkin and Finn wanted to continue the tradition (can something be a tradition if you've only done it once?) of decorating solely with homemade fused bead projects.

So we pretty much totally obscured our little tree with decorations. What says "Christmas" to Larkin and Finn? Aliens.

And the ship they flew in on.

A small herd of ponies.

'Shrooms.

And, of course, what would Christmas be without velociraptors?

While we were decorating, I asked if they would like me to put on some Christmas music. Larkin's response? "YEAH! How about Firewater?"

We had a long car conversation when Larkin and Finn asked about the religious aspects of Christmas. I believe I began with something like: "So... Jesus was supposedly the son of God, right? But his mother was human..." and it only went downhill from there. It was, perhaps slightly more knowledgeable than my subsequent explanations of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. The conversation naturally led to other holidays. Finn was particularly confused about why people thought an Easter Bunny and easter eggs were the obvious way to celebrate Jesus coming back to life. I couldn't really help him there, but I am motivated to help them find out more about the history behind modern holiday traditions.

So hey-- may the aliens land safely among your decorations this holiday season!

My Kids Are Badass

That is all.

Technobabble

Our friend Hunter started the kids building lego cell phones... generally they look like rectangles minimally dressed up with bits that look like buttons. After Finn had made about 20 of these, I asked him what he was mass producing:

His answer: "iPhones!" Well, duh. Larkin heard my question and thought she would help any other kinda slow adults out a little bit with a homonym clue:

Yup. An eyePhone. Finn, not to be out-done, announced that he was designing a model for spies. Wait for it...

That's right... it's an INVISIBLEiPhone.

The kids and I recently had a long discussion about what fractals are. Imagine their delight upon discovering this with the produce:

They were quite tickled by the idea of eating fractals for dinner, although after a taste they both decided to stick with the traditional broccoli we cooked with it.

In other culinary news, Larkin and Finn were very excited to find baby octopi in the seafood section of the grocery store. Emile, bless his fishy little heart, looked up a recipe on-line. After an overnight marinade and a few minutes on the grill, everyone (ahem, almost everyone) gave them a try. Neither Larkin nor Finn have a new favorite food, but Emile, Elly and Janelle declared them remarkably tasty. But can you blame me for not trying them? Check out this cute little guy:

It's wrong, I tell you. Just wrong.

Grace Under Pressure

If you don't want to read about vomit, skip this post.

We've had a raging stomach bug in our house this week. I am amazed at how well Larkin and Finn deal with adversity.

Larkin was the first down. She woke up sick at about 3am, but after her bed was cleaned up and re-made, she decided to set herself up to watch a movie on the couch with a blanket and a puke bowl. She didn't think she would be able to sleep with such a sore belly. Every 30-45 minutes we'd hear a musical little call of "moooore puu-uuke," signaling the need to empty her bowl. She was totally fine with us napping between episodes and was chatty and cheerful when we (read: Emile) got up to help her out. She didn't eat anything the next day, but there was no other indication that she had been sick.

Finn also experienced the worst of it at night, starting about 2am the next day. Now, Finn *adores* his beauty sleep and was mostly confused and disappointed that his body was waking him up so regularly to engage in such pointless and revolting business. He made several disparaging comments about his "stupid, puking body" the next day and then slept 12 hours that night.

Then it was my turn. I was a hopeless, woozy, drooling, teary, disgusting mess, making deals with the devil in the hopes of staying in bed 10 more minutes before another sojourn to the bathroom. I tried to go to bed at 6:30 pm in order to escape life. I hardly got out of bed the next day.

Ah, for the resilience of youth.

Opprobrium

On our way home after a fun day of Scienceworks and geocaching, I stopped at the small-town Talent liquor/hardware store to pick up some rum for Emile who has been enjoying the occasional mojito lately. The kids like picking a drink out of their wide selection of mixers while we're there, although they were bummed when they stopped carrying chocolate milk. This time, Finn chose cranberry juice and Larkin chose orange juice.

The kids were both very thirsty after our busy day. It was a Friday night and business was booming at the liquor store. On our way out into the crowded parking lot, while the door was still open into the busy store, Larkin raised her orange juice into the air and hollered: "Leeeeeet's Driiiiiiiink!"

Emile wanted to know if people were giving me dirty looks, but I confess I didn't make any eye contact after that point.

Imaginary Play in the New Millenium

Larkin and Finn have been having an at-least-once-a-week playdate with their young friend Hunter (Born on Larkin's birthday, 6 days before Finn). Today, I was listening in while they constructed lego merchandise in their small-town store.

A local giant was rebuffing all their attempts to make friends and offer gifts. After an imaginary internet search, it was determined that the giant was grumpy because its family had died long ago and it was very lonely. When they explained that it wouldn't be lonely any more if it became their friend, they all exchanged cell phone numbers and lived happily ever after.

Context Is Everything

My favorite out-of-context quote of the day:

"I'm going to entertain myself by being naked and looking at this magazine."

Context:

Finn was fresh out of the bath, waiting rather impatiently for his bedtime snack to be served. His favorite science tools catalog was near his place at the table.

Wagglers

Did you know eyebrow waggling is a learned skill? I highly recommend you grab the nearest small child and demand they waggle their eyebrows. You may get results like this:

Speaking of waggling, Larkin recently waggled her front tooth right out!

All she wanted from the tooth fairy was an electric toothbrush. When the tooth finally came out, she was very concerned that perhaps the tooth fairy hadn't planned ahead and she reassured us that we could leave her and Finn home alone while they slept to go buy one. Clearly, she doesn't credit the tooth fairy with enough foresight.

Child-Sized Marathon

Yesterday, we sent Emile off on an evening bike ride and picked him up around nightfall so he wouldn't have to brave the long uphill ride to our house in the dark.

These days, Larkin and Finn are usually pretty sleepy and ready for bed around 9pm, so we did bedtime snacks and got into sleepwear before the scheduled pick up. We met Emile at the Talent entrance to the bike path around 9:30, Finn talking the whole way about how he was very tired and about to fall asleep.

Josh H. had ridden Emile back to Talent, so the kids were excited to see him and chat him up. When Josh took off, Emile was busy putting the bike rack and his bike on our car. Larkin and Finn started running large circles around Emile and the car (Larkin in her night shirt and sandals, Finn barefoot in his pink horse PJs). After they had gone around 10-15 times, I remarked that I should have been counting to keep track of their progress. They liked that idea.

I sat in the driver's seat with my arm out the window so they could high five me on their way by... I was thinking they might circle another 15-20 times, tops. Meanwhile, Emile finished mounting his bike and got in the passenger's seat. I started throwing out random factoids with each number (well, for each number I could think of one)-- ages of people they know, significant dates, the meaning of life, the universe and everything, etc.

They got all the way up to 100 before they stopped! They were running the whole time, although they had slowed slightly by the end. I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation:

Figure our car is about 15 feet long, 4 feet wide. Add some leeway since they were actually looping quite a ways away from the car and figure they were running about 50 feet with each lap. Add in the 10-15 times they had already circled before I started counting, and they ran a total of about 112x50=5600 feet, or just over 1 mile. Not an insignificant piece of exercise at a time they'd normally be sleeping.

I nursed a bruised and tingling high-five hand all the way home, and Larkin and Finn slept very soundly last night.

You Say You Want An Evolution...

Recently, Larkin has been regularly transposing "evolution" and "revolution" in sentences. It works for many parts of speech!

While sword fighting with Finn and Hunter: "We're staging an evolutionary war!"

Random car question: "So, humans are revolved from chimpanzees, right?" Finn sounded downright astonished at this turn (heh) of events: "You mean, if chimpanzees spin around enough they'll turn into humans!?" He was ready for an experimental trip to the zoo.

Science Works has regular science talks, and after taking them to last month's talk on the volcanoes of Hawaii, Larkin is ready for more. They gave the subject for the next one and Larkin regularly asks when they'll be having the "Revolution Science Talk." Granted, that might be interesting... but not what they have planned.

Spelunking

Okay, so this is a bit slow reporting-wise, but last month I went on a trek to the Oregon Caves with Larkin, Finn and Eli. Having three kids on car trips is still novel enough that it's a big part of the fun. Here they are lunching before the cave tour:

The tours are all guided, 90 minutes and 500 stairs. It is notoriously difficult to take good pictures underground. There are more on the Picasaweb site if you want to see my lame attempts.

There were a few iffy moments. Eli was very reticent to travel down a narrow, very steep, spiral staircase, but was willing to make the trek with me close behind him holding his non-railing hand. Unfortunately, Finn had a panicked moment just after that at the top of a very steep, narrow straight staircase. I was still behind Eli and there is no passing room on these stairs, but he made it through with some verbal encouragement. On the next set of steep straight stairs, I went right in front of Finn and Eli and that seemed to alleviate their discomfort. I hardly saw Larkin on the traveling bits of the tour because she stayed right on the park ranger's heels and he walked quickly and then waited for the rest of the group.

At each stop the tour guide would give part of his spiel and then ask if anyone had questions. I think the kids would have been a bit happier with shorter stops, but since there were 8 adults with us in our group we had to be flexible. At the final stop when he asked if there were any last questions, Finn spoke up: "Um... when I grow up can I be a park ranger like you?" You could tell our ranger was just a little bit choked up as he spoke a bit about the park rangering business.

On an entirely unrelated note, Miss Tina was demonstrating a move at one of Larkin's last ballet classes (Tina is taking the summer off). She asked if anyone knew what it was called when one leg was bent and the other was straight. Without hesitation, Larkin called out "asymmetrical!" Miss Tina's mouth hung agape for several seconds before she acknowledged that, while that was true, the term she was looking for was "lunge."

Sticks and Stones

On Saturday, after a long play day at the park, Larkin wanted one last slide across the zipline before heading home. She fell off at the end, landed wrong on one wrist and Wham! Pain!

This was clearly a worse injury than she has had in the past. Her arm was slightly swollen and the pain didn't disappear the way it usually does after a tumble. After a bit of talk about doctors and x-rays, Larkin really just wanted to go home and curl up on the couch to watch a movie. She kept her wrist on ice from the time of the accident (yay, coolers!) until she went to sleep and was even willing to take some of the detested "berry" flavored ibuprofen to bring the swelling down.

That night, she woke up crying in pain 5-6 times. The next morning, we were off to the doctor. Larkin, hardly slowed down by her injury, selected a fancy dress for the trip and asked me to do her hair before we left. The triage nurse was asking all the usual admitting questions and chatting with Larkin to set her at ease. She asked Larkin if she was all dressed up to go to church. Larkin, not yet quite warmed up to her usual chatty self, shook her head no. About 30 seconds later, while the nurse was entering data into her computer, Finn asked me in a stage whisper: "Jenny? What's church?"

Finn! Here we are at a doctor's office in rural Oregon where it has already been established that our kids don't go to school and get injured in fairly spectacular ways (Larkin had light abrasions on her shoulder and face from the same fall). The nurse turned to me with mouth slightly agape and waited for my answer. I kept it pretty short: "Church is a place where people with similar religious beliefs gather together."

The nurse nodded definitively, said "that's right!" and turned back to her computer. I felt like I had passed some kind of test. Later, she looked suitably chastened when she told Larkin that she was going to put "a little squeezy thing" on her arm. Larkin looked her in the eye and said plainly, "you're going to take my blood pressure."

They took 3 x-rays of Larkin's wrist. Finn and I stayed in the room with her but had to go behind the shielding wall with the tech while the actual x-rays were taken. We'd hang out with Larkin while he positioned her arm properly, dash behind the barrier for the scan, then go back out to Larkin. There was a lot of giggling all around-- even the tech got in on the high-speed action.

The results of the x-rays came back: Larkin has a Type 2 Salter-Harris Fracture. The only real low point of the doctor experience came when the doctor was showing us the x-rays (Finn had been *very* excited to see the pictures and I think the doctor was somewhat charmed by the kids who had been interested in learning more about every step of the process-- she took a lot of time talking to them about everything that was going on). Finn was somewhat awed by the x-rays and I think he had a hard time believing that those things in the image were inside Larkin's arm. Too quickly for me to realize what he was about to do and stop him, he picked up her hurt arm to examine it in wonder. He realized almost immediately what he had done, but it really hurt Larkin... those were the only tears through the whole doctor's office ordeal and some were shed by both Larkin and Finn.

I felt a little less guilty about not taking Larkin to the ER right away when the doctor told us that they would have waited to put a cast on it anyway due to the swelling the night before. We left with a hot pink cast, 2 new pairs of sandals and a bag of toys from the dollar store (there was a long wait at the doctor's office and the kids wanted to explore the shopping center until our turn).

After a couple of slow days, Larkin is now mostly back to her usual energetic self. She has decided she's going to learn to use her left hand to write her name and do mazes during the three weeks before the cast comes off.

No One Here But Us Chickens...

After many noble intentions to build a chicken coop out of the various construction debris we have laying around, we decided time was of the essence and hired the job out. Anyone who knows Finn knows that he needs a few good egg-laying companions.

Our very own little red chicken coop:

Tada!

Anyone who knows Rook knows that we will reconstruct the dog fence before the actual chickens move in.

Guess where Larkin and Finn slept last night.

Well, until about 2:30 AM when they (accompanied by their trusty flashlight) snuck into our room for hugs before relocating back to Finn's room. Larkin wants to do it again tonight... and claims she'll stay outside alone if Finn decides to come back inside.

Homonymaniacal

This week, totally out of the blue, Larkin asked me why the Beatles named themselves after insects. Finally, something I didn't have to look up online! I told her about the fact that it was an homage to Buddy Holly and the Crickets, but (and this is what really got her attention) the band name was not actually spelled like insect beetles.

She was absolutely taken with the beat/beet distinction and was thrilled to learn there was a whole class of words that sounded the same but were spelled differently and had different meanings. She asked me to spell some more homonyms out for her and of course the old chestnut witch/which immediately came to mind. I spelled them, she tried to repeat them, she got lost in the letters, she asked me to repeat them. This happened several times before it occurred to me that pen and paper were invented for a reason.

I wish I had grabbed a clean sheet of paper, but I didn't know how long this fascination was going to last so I started our list on a scrap piece. Should you want to know where to buy dry ice in Medford, you're in luck. I absentmindedly doodled pictures next to each word (a witch's hat for "witch" and a question mark for "which") to illustrate the distinction for her. It didn't occur to me that I was setting a precedent I might have a hard time maintaining.

The first one Larkin came up with on her own was dam/damn. I'm so proud. Emile took over for me at some point and introduced some words that are spelled the same but have different meanings. (That's my oh-so-subtle way of pointing out that I'm not responsible for *all* the lame pictures... just most of them.)

This was not just an idle entertainment. Larkin was so excited that she ran to Emile as soon as he emerged from his office at the end of his work day and jumped up and down while she (loudly) described what we were doing and invited him to join in. That kind of enthusiasm can't be taught, bought or (sigh) bottled in a hip flask for me to take out while doing the taxes for the book exchange.

Blushing Is For Wusses

While we were shopping at the co-op on this crowded Thursday morning, Larkin and Finn were perusing the bulk section trying to make some selections. Larkin wanted something fruity and gummy and couldn't remember if she liked the gummy fruit slices or if she should stick with gummy worms. She called (loudly) out to me (while I was 15 feet away innocently scooping granola into a jar), "Jenny? Do I like wedgies?"

At least four solo, adult shoppers giggled.

Finn noticed the public amusement and so I found myself in the middle of the busy co-op explaining exactly what a wedgie is.

Of Earrings and Angry Birds

Larkin has been talking about getting her ears pierced since she was about 3, but was scared enough about the process (you know, what with the actual Piercing and all) that she chose to wait until she was "older." I seem to remember 7 being bandied about as some sort of magic ear-piercing age. Well, after a conversation with her teenage friend Janey and a play date with her slightly-younger-but-already-pierced friend Tia, she was ready to go.

So off we went to the Piercing Pagoda at the mall where Larkin took one look at the selection of piercing studs and promptly chose the most expensive ones available. Apparently, sparkly butterflies are priced at a premium. She barely flinched at the actual piercing and was very attentive to the cleaning instructions doled out by the lady running the booth. She has only needed occasional reminders to include ear-cleaning in her morning and evening routines and is pleased as punch with her new ability to accessorize.

On our way to the Piercing Pagoda, we passed a store with this on display:

I mean the bird, not the kids. Finn has been enthralled by the Angry Birds game on Emile's phone and had been talking about how much he would like a stuffed Angry Bird. I didn't know such a thing even existed so I had been cautious in encouraging his expectations. Suffice it to say, there were paroxysms of joy in the mall corridor when we spotted this.

If you haven't played the game, I highly recommend it. You use a sling shot to fling Very Angry Birds at their demonically smug pig nemeses who hide themselves in complicated tower structures. Since our serendipitous mall find, we have spent many hours constructing towers at which to fling our very own angry bird.

In other news, totally unrelated to either earrings or angry birds, Larkin recently referred to the local elementary school as "that juggling place." I was amused, although it does make sense since her only experiences with the place have been either on the playground or attending juggling club meetings with Emile.

Ballerina Base Two

Larkin started a ballet class a couple of months ago. I had nightmare images of rows of young children standing at a barre performing repetitive movements while being shouted at by a barely mobile ex-prima ballerina. Luckily, local friends with older kids directed us to a class that Larkin has loved.

Miss Tina prepares them for a performance, and the kids are introduced to the basics while learning a routine for the show. Finn, while not interested in formal lessons, has been very excited to discover that some of the ways he moves have fancy ballet names. Most notably, he now likes to announce what he's doing as he "chasses" across the room.

Larkin has been having an excellent time, and I've been amused to see how some of the things she's learning in ballet bleed over into other aspects of life.

Yesterday we were playing a board game that involves rolling a pair of dice and moving the appropriate number of spaces. At the beginning, Larkin announced that she was going to "practice ballerina counting." When, for instance, she rolled something that added up to 8, she would count out: "1-2-3, 2-2-3, 3-2." She never hesitated in her translation of the roll of the dice to ballerina base two.

Challenge Game

I got this idea from one of the unschooling mailing lists I'm on. Emile and I came up with a set of cards, each with an activity/challenge for the kids. They pick one out of the box and do whatever the card says. The primary purpose is for them to have fun... the secondary purpose is for us to have something to fall back on when we're feeling particularly tired or having a hard time engaging with the kids as actively or positively as we would like. To this end, we tried to come up with things that Larkin and Finn could do pretty independently.

So far, they have been having a BLAST. I don't know how long this first set of cards is going to last, so please let me know if you have more ideas! Many thanks to Jim, Alex and Elly for greatly enhancing our original set of ideas. I'll try to take pictures of the more entertaining ones as they happen.

• Guess how many same size lego bricks will fit in a measuring cup. Count to find out how close you are.
• Make a potato person or animal using a potato, thumb tacks, tape and any materials you can find in the craft cubbies. Name your creature and make up a story about its life.
• Draw a picture using only paper and dry beans. Write your name with the beans.
• Find something to represent each color, then construct a rainbow on the floor.
• Get on your hands and knees, put your knees up on your elbows and croak like a frog. How long can you hold that position?
• Draw a star while hopping on one foot.
• Get a pen or pencil, paper and a mirror set up so you can draw while looking ONLY in the mirror-- NOT at the paper. Draw a heart, then a star. Are certain shapes harder/easier to draw?
• Count how many books are in the nearest box of books.
• Push a ball across the living room floor with your nose.
• Find 10 things in the house that start with the letter "S."
• Find or make something in the house that looks like a unicorn horn and figure out how to attach it to your forehead.
• Measure how tall Larkin's bunk bed is in lengths of Finn's forearm.
• Count how many times you can fold a piece of paper in half. Is it different with different kinds of paper?
• Draw a treasure map on your stomach with a marker.
• Sing "Happy Birthday" in a secret fairy language.
• Make as many hearts as you can with a single pipe cleaner.
• Find 10 things in the house that are yellow.
• Create an alien out of playdough and make up a story about its planet and life.
• Say the alphabet backwards.
• Time how long you can do a "wall sit."
• Draw a picture of what you would look like if you were an alien.
• Dress up in Emile's clothes and do something he would do.
• Hide something in your room then draw a treasure map. See if someone else can find the item using only the map.
• How many grains of rice do you think fit in a level tablespoon? Measure one out and see how close you are.
• See how far you can walk while balancing a spoon on your nose.
• Measure the length of the living room in lengths of Larkin's feet.
• Find one purple thing in every room of the house.
• Draw a picture of Spiderman.
• Walk from one end of the house to the other five times, like a different animal each time.
• Act out one of your favorite scenes from Avatar, playing all the parts yourself.
• Tape a coin to your forehead.
• Find 10 things in the house that start with the letter "P."
• Draw an upside down face on your chin, using your mouth as the face's mouth.
• Turn every item of your clothing inside out and then put them back on.
• Walk like a pirate from one end of the house to the other with a toy bird balanced on one shoulder.
• Close every door in the house, including closets.
• Count to 20 by twos.
• Put every barrette in Larkin's hair box in your hair.
• Call a grandparent and tell them about your day.
• Make a painting of a butterfly using only ketchup and paper on the kitchen floor.
• Dress up in Jenny's clothes and do something she would do.
• Using mirrors and a flashlight, shine a beam from the kitchen table to an upstairs wall.
• Design a paper airplane and see how far a flight it can make.
• Put on 3 pairs of pants at the same time. How hard is it to bend your knees? Touch your toes?
• Get 10 big lego and put an empty jar on the floor. See how many lego you can drop in the jar while standing with your arm extended straight out in front of you. What if you stand on the couch?
• Draw a star using only your toes.
• Find a large stuffed animal and dress it in your clothes.
• Walk backwards from the game table to the dogs' door.
• Call an uncle and tell him about your day.
• Turn off every light in the house.
• Count how many articles of clothing you can wear all at once.
• Tape your thumbs to your palms and then try to: write your name, open a door, take the lid off a jar.
• Measure how far you can jump from standing. How about with a running start?
• Find a mirror and see if you can learn to cross your eyes. Then try raising only one eyebrow.
• Draw a circle while keeping your eyes closed. Then a picture of your head with your eyes closed.
• Draw a scary face on a paper bag then put it on your head and make a monster noise.
• Guess how many earth balls are in the jar in the snack cupboard. Count to see how close you are.
• Using only sticks and leaves from outside, build a boat that will float in the tub or sink. See if it stands up to waves.
• Take turns telling one sentence at a time of a story.
• Jump up and clap your hands once while you're still in the air. See how many times you can clap during one jump.
• Find 10 things in the house that start with the letter B.
• Close your eyes, stand on one foot and touch your nose. Keep your eyes closed and try not to fall down while counting slowly to 10.
• Make a picture of a horse using only paper and dry cereal on the kitchen floor.
• Make up a story about who your "real" parents are and what they are like.
• Find 10 circles in the house. Then squares, rectangles and triangles. Which shape was hardest to find?
• Measure how many finger lengths long the stair supports are.
• Arrange things under your blankets so it looks just like you're sleeping there.
• Make the shape of a person on the kitchen floor using only spoons and butter knives.
• See how high you can make a stack of stuffed animals.
• See how many holes you can punch in a piece of paper with a pencil tip before it falls apart into more than one piece.
• Run around the kitchen island 15 times.
• Touch every electrical outlet downstairs.
• Count how many times you can go up and down the stairs in 2 minutes.
• Touch the floor of every room in the house with your elbow.
• Tell a short story about a robot, an alien and a princess.
• Count how many times you can hop on one foot before you have to put the other foot down.
• Pick a poem or short story you know and sing the words instead of just speaking them.
• Slither across the living room like a snake-- keep your arms at your sides and don't push with your feet.
• Count how many times you can spin before you fall over.
• See how many 3 inch long tears you can make in one piece of paper before it falls into more than once piece.
• Pull yourself on your belly all the way across the living room floor without using your legs.
• Sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" while standing on one foot.
• Count how many times you can hop around a piece of furniture on one foot.
• Find your way from one toilet to the other with your eyes closed.
• Make a card to send to a friend.
• Count the number of pieces of clothing in the room you're currently in.
• Make as long a line as you can out of stuffed animals laid end to end.
• Ask Emile if he wants a sandwich. IF yes, make him one.
• Tuck a teddy bear into each bed and bring them a drink from a sippy cup.

 Hopefully a more general kid-life update will be forthcoming shortly.