"she faded into that newborn crowd / like a warning of what could be lost"

[larryhammer]

TBD is four years + four months old. Not as much noted down this month because life.

Achievements unlocked this last month: concentration-style games, a magnifying glass, twist-ties, recognizably writing own name (by copying letters from a model), rock paper scissors, camping, scrambling eggs.

Apparently Lunchbox Squarepants is the official headcanon name. Other media recently consumed eagerly include Paw Patrol, Space Racers, and Dinosaur Train -- as well as several Mandarin learning games, in part because we allow extra screen time for those. Which we do because TBD has started weekly Mandarin lessons at the local Chinese Cultural Center. As well as biweekly Hebrew school. Added to the occasional First Day School at Quaker Meeting, we have very full Sundays -- we'll see if this works out.

The camping trip was greatly enjoyed, as was hiking a mile without having to be carried (though we had to talk them into finishing the last 100 meters). TBD was disappointed we didn't do it again the next, holiday weekend. We're hoping this Friday night -- it's clear getting up the mountain is good for TBD, in many ways.

Lots of work at school and home on writing and drawing skills -- copying letters is only the start. One key skill I noticed: when coloring in an area, trying to color along the edge instead of stopping a line from crossing it.

Another key development: TBD is starting to volunteer more details about things that happen when we're not around.

Speaking of which, there's a few bits of talking, talking:

(while playing at camping, a campfire story was needed:)
"Once upon a time it was Halloween, and there were a lot of monsters, and a lot of ghosties, and a lot of zombies, and a lot of robots, and it was very spooooky. They all went out in the street, scaring people, and they went trick-or-treating because there were people inside, the end."

"If you smush a bug by accident, that's okay?"
"It's okay. It's good to try not to, but it happens."
"Mommy, you be the bug."

"Rock, paper, scissors, poop!"

"I wish we had a baby. Because I get lonely here."


Because sometimes, alas, the grownups have other things to do than play.

---L.

Subject quote from "St. Stephen's Cross," Vienna Teng.

Comments

[larryhammer]

We do! Take care of bugs, that is. Unless ones in the house are real nuisance bugs, they get evicted instead of squashed. We even put off clearing the back yard when a horde of hornworms appeared, and put one of the biggest ones in a bug box with weeds and a bed of dirt. A couple days later,it disappeared under the dirt -- and two weeks later a sphinx moth appeared. We watched that a while then set it free that evening. Very cool.

[thistleingrey]

Of course!--sorry, didn't mean it as a challenge. That's lovely about the moth in particular. Reason has had to make do with watching a neighbor's bees run out of energy mere meters from their hive, and with generic spiders that spin in our endless juniper: neither can be adopted temporarily. (The bees were a good intro to the concept of death a few years ago, but I'm sure we could have done without that. It's not clear whether some other neighbors spray pesticides or whether the problem is something else, but those are some awfully fatigued bees. They make enough honey even so for the neighbor household to share with adjacent households once a year.)