Spring, Perhaps, and Lots of Talking

I'm kind of tired of waking up, looking at our indoor/outdoor temperature/clock/phases of the moon thingie and discovering that it's 33 degrees out. But it's 50 degrees out there right now and sunny...so spring may finally be here. (The crocuses sure think so - they have been blooming for weeks, right through several snowfalls.)

Kid boasts:

Sascha has been adding numbers for awhile. She doesn't know that's what she's doing, but she does it. She's good with adding 1 to just about anything; adding 2 or 3 is fairly easy for her; larger numbers are dicier. And she can definitely subtract 1, because every morning, she's been telling me just how many days it is until Aunt Mary visits. (We're at 9 and counting.)

She has been asking some hard questions. She wanted to know if there was a time when there were no people in the world. Then after about a week, she wanted to know how the first person got here!

She also wants to know why people take cow's milk away from baby cows and sell it to people. And why we kill animals and eat them. Whew. We have talked about how many animals eat other animals, and if they didn't, we'd be overrun with mice and worms (among other things). But it's still difficult to explain why, with all the food we have to choose from, we eat chickens and pigs.

Zoe: today Zoe said her first sentence. She was in the pantry and she distinctly said "Oh, no!" (I have never heard her say this before.) I came over to see what was wrong, and she pointed to the cat's food dish (which was almost empty). Then she signed "cat eat" and pointed to the container of cat food. After I filled the dish she started calling for Theo (the way you might call a cat - I have no idea what to call the sound - it's like a really loud kiss). I was floored.

My favorite Zoe word is "bleah!" She says this to describe something dirty, or a spill. You have to stick your tongue out when you say it to get the full effect. ;)

Recent photos...darn cute if I may say so.








And here's Theo and Zoe relaxing together....

I'm Dreaming of a White April

I'm Dreaming of a White April

Winter appears to be making up for our green Christmas by giving us snow for Tax Day. How thoughtful.

The kids are doing well. Although poor Zoe has cavities. She went to the dentist Wednesday and I thought all would go well. Instead she's slated to have 2 fillings done in July. As Matt's teeth are astoundingly healthy, I can only assume they have inherited my bad teeth genes. (Sascha's 1-year molars all have some degree of decay.) Fingers crossed that they don't get my genes for eyesight as well, or they'll both be wearing glasses by the time they are 7.

Zoe's saying quite a few new words: yeah, bye, cheese, juice, baby (she said this once...we haven't heard it since), ball, bowl, and mine. "Mine" seems to be one of those words that second children learn fairly early! Zoe uses it constantly...sometimes she sounds like one of the seagulls from Finding Nemo.

Sascha is starting to figure out spelling...she asks how to spell words, and what certain words start with. Yesterday we were reading about snakes and she had a lot of questions, so we pulled out the encyclopedia and learned where cobras live, how antivenom works, how baby snakes get out of their eggs without breaking them open, and why snakes shed their skin.

Sascha also wants to go exploring in the woods...which I would be much more enthusiastic about if it weren't 33 degrees and snowing. Before we got more snow, she was riding her bike (with training wheels) and she is much faster than last year! Of course Zoe wants to ride a bike too, but her feet don't yet reach the pedals of the tricycle. She has grown about an inch in the past 2 months, but is still wearing 12-18 month clothing.

Here's a pic of Sascha watching ToddWorld this afternoon (based on the books by Todd Parr):



And here's some from Easter morning: