el nino

So what about the other kid?
He is charming. I've heard several people say that they would steal him from me if they could. Maybe it's the short, dark and handsome thing, maybe they like his dimples and his squinty grin.
He still says some things in his own funny way, like "I already HAD gwefdist!!", or "I aftergot my BOOK MAMA!!". He can't make the "rrrr" sound. He does okay with letters and numbers, but it takes a lot of prodding to get him to sing the ABC song. His particular gifts seem to be: jabbering constantly in a very high-pitched voice, gesticulating, and being either absolutely infuriating or ridiculously entertaining. And yes, his sisters call him "Eyeball".

middle child

Mini-me's conference was yesterday. First grade is a breeze for her, but I could tell from what the teacher was saying that it's not boring. She's able to challenge herself, she's great at math, but LittleK's favorite thing to do is write - stories, letters, illustrated journal entries - and she's pretty good at spelling too, for being only six. Mini-me. Karma.

first-born

T does have a mild case of scoliosis. It's about a 7-degree curvature, nothing worth worrying about. Her pain has lessened and she's not missing school, soccer or ballet anymore.

We went to her "Student-Led Parent-Teacher Conference" today. I'll just take off my Bragging Hat and state the facts... she's advanced, in every subject. She's conscientious, hard-working, she gets along with everybody and she doesn't have a shred of arrogance. Wow. She makes mistakes like every student does, but I'm happy to see that because it means that it's not all one big cake-walk.

an ache, a water park, potty humor

FEBRUARY, what??? It seems like winter was humming right along, there was snow, the kids were always outside... then January happened and we all just fell flat on our faces. Oh maybe not K, he's always on schedule and working out... but the rest of us are kind of out of it.

T has an aching-back problem. All she wants to do is sit with a heating pad pressed against her back. K took her to the doctor today, and there's a possibility she has scoliosis. We'll know more tomorrow. She never had this problem before last week, and it's hard to watch her be so bummed out and inactive. She's missed another day and a half of school and now has a tangle of missed assignments to make up.

The girls and I went to H2Oasis in Anchorage on Saturday for an absurdly-delayed birthday event (they have September birthdays). They each invited a good friend and we all had a blast. T's back was either not as bad as usual or she was just ignoring it. My nephew was celebrating his tenth birthday at H2Oasis that day, so we got to see lots of relatives. I got up the nerve to go on the Master Blaster slide (with Boss' little six-year-old friend) and also got talked into going on the other huge slide... kids are brave. I think it was brave enough of me to be seen in public wearing a swimsuit. Yikes.

R and his dad met up with some Lynden friends that day and went ice-fishing. I don't know where they went, other than it was somewhere in the Matsu area and they had a 40-minute snowmachine ride to the lake. Little Dude didn't catch any fish, but he did poop on the ice. What an adventure, potty training! Being 3, he's sort of preoccupied with that particular bodily function and he thinks it's perfectly appropriate to talk about butts during dinner. He's learned his numbers pretty well and yelled from the bathroom the other day, "MAMA!!! LOOK AT MY SEVEN!!!!"