August and September have flown by...of course don't all months begin to do that? The boys have really gotten into imaginative play. Unfortunately, their imaginary playthings often end up being the object of major fights. Tim had to settle the fight about who had more pretend, imaginary money. All were satisfied by a few well placed imaginary bills from his own wallet to even the score. While I am thrilled they are imagining, sometimes it is difficult not to pull my hair out or laugh hysterically!
Yesterday, we had a land dispute on our hands. Unbeknownst to me, we have an imaginary apple orchard in our living room. Z had spent the morning picking apples from the orchard. (I am not sure when this happened--he must pick VERY fast) Long about lunchtime, I heard yelling, screaming, and hitting from the kitchen (where the apples were being washed, I can only imagine). When I came in, I was informed that R was trying to steal Z's apples because it was easier for him to take those apples than go pick his own. I told him that he had to either pay Z for the apples or give them back. After thinking about it for a minute, R said it was cheaper to go pick his own apples than to pay Z for his apples. The apples were returned and our day was able to progress as normally as a day can with an imaginary apple orchard in one's living room!
The first week of September, we started K4 home school with R (and consequently, preschool with Z). He is primarily working on writing his letters and numbers. With the help of The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise, he has started reading. He walks into stores and the library with one goal- to find a book in which he can read most of the words. We found some very simple readers that he can read pretty much the entire book. He is thrilled. He asks to do reading lessons every day-even weekends. Who am I to tell him the school week is typically only 5 days? He is not nearly as excited about writing lower case letters or numbers. Z wanders around asking if its time to do his math lessons. Then, when we sit at the school table, he groans, "Why do we have homework?" (A question he picked up from big brother before the reading lessons started!!!)
Other things have happened in the last two months, but the length of this post is already exceeding normal readability length!! I'll have to fill in the details of the rest of the family in a later post!
