It's been like three 30's

 Covid 19's been hard on us all. But the blog is back. 

Aviva's reading really well and she likes to read aloud to people. So she's been calling up family members to read. And since we talk about time zones and how it's too late at 7:00 to call someone on the east coast, she's been asking what time it is for Bubbe several times a day. At first I would answer her when she asked, and now I ask her: "What time is it for Bubbe?" "Well, what time is it here? Add three hours!" So she's constantly telling us that Bubbe is probably eating lunch now, or Bubbe is going to bed now. I guess it's good that both kids understand time now; we can't trick them anymore by starting the bedtime routine at 4:00. (We only did that twice.) (Once was really funny. Noah was watching Star Wars for the first time. We had talked up how late it would be when he left but Noah got bored early so we left early. The only problem was that he had a night light that turns on at 7 pm. So I had to text Yona to reprogram it so he would not know.)

Aviva has a few funny word choices/pronounciation. 

concentrate = conchestrate

comfortable = comfort-al

permission = position 

binoculars = bino-cleers

comfortal = comfortable

es-kyu-me = excuse me

guzzausted = exhausted

annoy = ignore = annoy

hippopotamus = hippopamanos, like the spanish word vamanos

She is also now understanding the meaning of a week, a month, and a year, but it helps her sometimes to call them 7's, 30's, or 365's. How many 7's until school starts again? How many 30s ago were we in Solvang?

The kids have been biking a lot, and we've been going to different skate parks and bike parks. This one is called Dirt World. They're both really good!

So as far as life skills, swimming is checked off. Biking is checked off. Typing -- he's at about 13 words per minute. She can type just f's an j's really really well. 25 wpm! The rest of the keys -- she can peck pretty well. You can comment below if you have ideas about other life skills. 

Both kids are doing a forest camp 3 or 4 days/week, where they do archery, basket-making, hiking and tracking, and throwing axes and knives (really!). They often come home with a backpack full of sticks that they've carved. Before and after camp (and on days they don't go to camp) we do remote learning school. They have class meetings daily, before camp. There's also math, art, writing, music, and there are various assignments including work with a typing program. Noah has not really been enjoying camp recently. The camp has struggled to find their Covid groove and Noah is a tricky kid. 

The kids did an obstacle course in the kitchen that Josh made up. It was one of awful trifecta days (covid, hot and closed windows due to smoky air).  We don't have pictures of them climbing over the stood up mattress.