Happenings

-We all had the flu last week. It sucked. Kate and Oliver had it bad.

-Cora has her first real loose tooth. She has had several phantom loose teeth in the past, born of wishful thinking as her classmates lost their own teeth. But this one is for real--the permanent tooth is already pushing up through the gum behind it. Exciting!

-Gma Carol and Cora went out his week and got Cora a new generation of hermit crabs. She got two this time--Hermie Jr. and Shermie. We went to the pet store this afternoon and outfitted them with a larger terrarium and a nice hiding space. These crabs are biiger than Hermie the First, and we've already noticed more crab poo. We don't know if Hermie the First ever pooed at all. That might have been his cause of death.

-Oliver is starting to read. Short words of three letters basically, but he knows all the letters of the alphabet and is learning how to put them together. It has been fun to watch because it is arising from his pure joy in letters and how they sound. We're not coaching him at all. Maybe a little :)

-A few days ago I was playing with Oliver, making shapes of letters with my fingers. I tried to spell his name with my fingers, making the shape of each letter. I got all the way to "r" and couldn't get it to look right. I was trying to make a literal shape of an "r". Oliver asked, "What's that letter?" I told him what I was trying to do. He said, "This is an R", and held up the sign language symbol for "r". The rascal. Our kids are already smarter than we are. Smarter than me at least.