We're all afraid of germs; school's out

This is social isolation, from our window, and in the kids' room:

You should stay six feet away

This is Aviva's way of making one horse ride another horse, without falling off. You just need rubberbands:






We went for a hike and found another place for social isolation:



Josh is teaching the kids to play tennis:

  


We went to the beach in Alameda:



Aviva is reading, slowly and with others. She sort of read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish yesterday. She's also liking to write things down, and she keeps asking me if I have anything I want her to write, because she wants to have a purpose. She wants to know the dia-tales of stories, and if I want her to write the dia-tales, she can. Also she keeps calling us "guys." "Hey guys, can you come over here?" When I asked her the other night what she had for dinner at her nana and papa's house, she couldn't remember but said it was the opposite of broccoli. And I knew what she meant, and I bet you do, too. (Cauliflower, right? That's what you were thinking?)

Look who can ride a bike

No problem! She can start and stop and break and go uphill and go downhill. And now that school is cancelled for the next 3 weeks, there's plenty of time to practice...

blowtorch, hammer and saw, lousyhead

March 11, 2020
Noah earned a Baked Alaska cake by agreeing to cut his hair. Nana and Papa made it, and it was a multi-day process including borrowing a blowtorch. It was beautiful and very yummy.

We also hung out with Jill and Dan, and Brennan, and baby Theo.

Aviva took this picture

Aviva has been doing lovely art, like this: 

When she's working by herself on something and concentrating, she makes this sound: "chhhh chhhh chhhh"

She's still getting upset (and she says sometimes she's even more upsetter) about things, and it often starts with her making some unreasonable request, like why can't I carry her home. Then the disappointment becomes anger and anger gets stronger, and she can't turn it around. It's happening daily but there are better days and worse days. Yesterday was pretty good. She had a bunch of cute language things: 

• She has a daily chore to empty her backpack from school. When she unpacks it, she calls it doing her "unchore" -- her backpack has been unchored. 
• She was decorating something with markers and she made a "powtern"
• We had faked potatoes the other night (because we often have fake meat, so why not fake potatoes)
• She mentions the color "moojenta"  a lot, which she says is like brown and purple. Or sometimes she colors something blue or yellow or moojenta. Basically I think moojenta is whatever color she wants 
• Something can be infinity feet away, which is really far
• She said someone had googleplex dollars
• Sometimes we need to walk briskly, and she calls it "brisky"

Not-cute fit-related things: 

• She wanted to give me flowers but when I said "okay", she yelled at me and called me mean. 
• She likes to give Noah these too-hard hugs, and won't let go. He does not like it
• When she's upset, the answer to everything is "NO!!" or sometimes just "no." If I say I didn't like something, she'll disagree and say, "yes, you did." Or if I say I'm getting tired of this game, she'll say, "No, you're not."
• She'll speak in a mean snarly voice, and hit and pull hair and fight, and then when we put her in her bed (which isn't exactly punishment but she needs to be alone,) she'll play alone and talk to herself and be totally happy

Both kids:

• They're doing tons of fake burps, constant toots and talk about butts and poop. I'm ignoring it because it's too annoying

We went to adventure playground recently, which is so cool and Noah loved using the tools. It's a playground where kids can keep adding to the play equipment and they can use hammers and saws. 

  

   

Noah has been really into slapstick comedy, and he's doing tons of joke-making where he suddenly falls asleep or says "kapow!!!!!"  Also he called me a lousyhead the other day.

We had an activity at the kids' school where they all made different kinds of art. This was what one kid made (not Noah or Aviva but it's nice so I'll showcase):

Here are some of Aviva's faces: