Eskew me

 

Life is a little hard lately. The kids going to their outdoors camp for a day and a half each week (because the counselor Noah likes only works those days, and he refuses to be with anyone else). Other days we are sort of doing schoolwork. The kids also got a job walking some dogs, and they can do that as often as they want. Last week it was for 3 days. They/we take Oscar and Ollie to a nearby park with a playground and everyone's happy. They get paid $5/kid per day. Noah has also been playing chess, in person and online against Papa and some his classmates. If anyone else is interested, we are happy to set up dates! 

We are very eager to return to normal life, with kids in school. We want to ride the bus and BART and go places we haven't in a long time. The kids need to be with other kids. Noah has a growing list of dislikes and refusals and we need a big change. So we're going to Hawaii in a couple weeks. For a month. That will be good, right?

Nana and Papa ordered some food from New York that came with dry ice, and we got to play with it. It was very cool (ha ha). We put it in water, added it to soapy colored water, and put a metal spoon on it which made it vibrate. 

Josh has been taking kids on weekends, giving them a chance to have one-on-one attention with just me or just him. And today he took them both skiing, giving me a chance to have some none-on-one attention. They've been skiing and camping, and next weekend he'll take one of them canoeing. We're also trying to take kids on little trips separately, to the playground or keep us company on errands. Overall, they spend so much time together and it's hard on both of them (Noah and Aviva, not Josh). They've been doing a lot of burping and saying "excuse me" though the way Aviva says it is "eskew me." It might be cute if it wasn't happening all the time. 

Aviva is now 7 years old, as of January 17. She says she feels bigger and taller. Nana made her a beautiful birthday cake which Aviva got to decorate, and we had a little birthday party on zoom. 

Aunt Shira sent us some puzzles and we've been doing those. They both like to do that with me.

Lastly, re: language. Noah has been saying "literally" a lot, and he's mostly using it to put emphasis on what he's saying. Aviva has been confusing the words "ignore" with "annoy" and also "slice" and "stack." So yesterday she asked me for a big slice of paper. And she also recently told Noah, "Noah, I'm just annoying you."