Well, my kids are still sick. And I hate it, because I feel motivated to go places but instead, we're stuck at home. We're all starting to get on each other's nerves.

Yesterday, they did a page or two of "Explode the Code". Then, they got bored and put the workbooks away. B really loves the absurd questions that he has to answer in the workbook. Normally, he would balk at reading something like that but he laughs a lot at the funny questions. T is getting bored with "a", "at", "ag", "ap" and all things "a". We're skipping ahead, because he clearly knows "a" cvc words backwards and forwards and it's just unnecessarily repetitive at this point.

Afterwards, they drew and wrote on their own. B wrote "The Umazing Spidrman" and drew a picture. T wrote "Batman" and decorated it with stamps. Then, he got upset that he couldn't draw Spiderman's web like B.

Honestly, they're driving me a little nuts. They're fighting more often, because nobody feels well and we're all tired of being stuck at home. You know it's bad when introverts are desperate to leave the house. Sigh.

Yesterday, B asked how much 3 30s were, because he was trying to figure out roughly how many days were in 3 months. After I told him, I asked him to tell me how much 3 3's were. We also used 2 3's to determine what 2 30s were. T announced that 2 5s were 10 and I taught him that 2 50s were 100.

I brought home workbooks from my Chinese Mandarin class. The workbooks are actually designed for Chinese children, so they have lots of cute cartoons in them. My kids loved the books. They were insatiable in wanting to know what all the words said. It's good for me, but it's not pleasant when it's 7am and I'm still struggling to wake up. It is really good for me, however, and they enjoy it. They learned words like: butterfly, big, "the Great Wall", flower, green, etc.

I taught them the words for Grandpa and Grandma, the father's parents only. When I said 'paternal grandmother': nei-nei, B heard me speak in the third tone and he used his hand to make the third tone gesture when he repeated the word. I was pleased that, even though they only remember a few words, B can hear and identify the 4 tones. I wish he could take my class; I think he'd love it.

I finally left them to look at the workbook by themselves and I heard B tell T, "Oh, that's ge-ge, older brother." I had taught him that a a few days ago; he used the correct tone, i.e. the first tone.

Languages are sooo much fun. And even though we're not aiming for fluency, I'm sure the multiple language exposures are good for their brains. They'd never get this in school. They'd get one Spanish word a week, which used to really upset my oldest niece because it's such a tortuously slow way of being "fed" a language. Although, I should say that they could do an immersion magnet school if we could ever get off the wait-list. It's a trade-off, whichever education method we choose. Oh well. So far, they've had good exposure and language practice with Spanish, German and Mandarin. They've had minimal exposure to a few other languages like French and Polish. I don't know what we'll try next.

Well, we went to the opera the other day. It was so good. T, in particular, really enjoyed it. He loves any kind of musical production, whereas B could take it or leave it after a point. I think that last year's opera might have been better, but this one was still very good. After the opera, at T's urging, we met the "princess". And then we briefly got close to the villain, who waved at T. I have a feeling that T is going to be my little opera/concert/musical/ballet buddy, whereas B will be like dh and just not get a lot out of it.

T also loves old musicals on TV whereas B gets bored with them within 2 minutes. The last time I put on a Gene Kelly movie, T was trying to imitate their dances. I keep meaning to look for "Singing in the Rain" for them, because after the slow intro, it gets really interesting and engaging.

Both kids have worked on some "Explode the Code" workbooks recently. Because we don't know how much B can read, we started him on a basic level to fill in any gaps and to build his confidence. I think the activity was on 'silent e' and he's apparently good with that. T is plugging away on his "Explode the Code Level 1". He really surprises me with what he can read.

T can glance at a picture with three word choices and, even though the picture is very vague, he immediately says "pat" which means that he's scanned all three words and selected the one that most closely suits the picture. We did a sentence activity but he got frustrated with the sentences so, instead of reading them, he just pointed to the sentence that had the noun that matched the picture. So, for example, a picture of rat has two sentences: "The rat is fat. The cat is fat." I ask him which sentence has the picture word and he immediately points to the rat sentence.

The issue he has, which B had and most (?) little boys have, is that he just doesn't have the patience to sit and do it. He CAN do it but he just can't keep his attention there for more than a minute; it's probably a developmental readiness issue. I think that most little boys are too wiggly and disinterested to do that sort of thing. Even with mine having freaky attention spans, neither had the focus to do workbooks for more than a minute at this age. The issue is that B wants to do workbooks and whenever he does them, T wants to do them too and he doesn't want to stop even when I can tell he should.

T gets frustrated when he can't do what B does. He puts a lot of pressure on himself and he has high expectations of himself. And, based on multiple comments he's made, he doesn't think he's very smart. I have "The Optimistic Child" and I keep meaning to read it. It's funny; you're not supposed to praise kids, but what do you do when your child thinks he's not smart? I see that a kid who isn't even 4 1/2 typically doesn't teach himself to read, but all he sees is that he's not reading books like us. He's really hard on himself. I have to read that book.

I don't know what our plans are for next week yet. It seems like the month of February has flown by!

We have made a bunch of field trips lately that I need to mark down. We've been to the Science Center a few times. On one trip there, B made a hand-dipped candle. Dh wants to make a fire pit at the new house. I think we could easily do hand-dipped candles there.

We've had a field trip to the main police station. A lot of it went over my kids' heads, but they still enjoyed it. A highlight was meeting a canine unit.

We visited a new cultural center nearby that has a small art museum, history museum and science center. The science center was the highlight for both kids. B loved the bone room and the Tinker-Toy exhibit. T loved a giant semi-customizable marble run machine.

B's finished his pottery class and we're evaluating other options. T is taking a drama class.

I think that's it for field trips. Oh! We're going to the opera soon, a kid-themed one. We attended one last year and it was a HUGE hit with my kids. We're looking forward to this.