Less than Twelve Parsecs

It's a bit unnerving to get out of the house for a walk during enforced social distancing when you have young kids (4-6) who are crazy energetic but forgetful and would not easily tolerate face masks. How do you keep them away from passersby without constant nagging? Today, we had a brilliant approach: short-leash kite flying! What you need: - small kite, 5-6ft long handle-to-tail (see bottom of post) - windy day - kids. It worked out wonderfully, every person instinctively gave us a wide berth, trying to avoid a fluttering kite tail in their face. The kids had a natural constant reminder to stay away from others - they don't want their kite all tangled up! Plus I've had the most fun with kites as I've had in years - thank you,  Aeolus ! Here I am with Fae, we were flying the story kite for the first part of the walk, until Gaius's original kite got its wing broken and we swapped with him: The kites are geniusly simple, from a Kiwi Crate we ha...

If you'd ask me, I'd say we pretty much know what we're doing. Greg and I pondered for over a year about this decision of having a third child. We took it very seriously, and got full consensus agreement within the family (us and the two kids) on whether this is the right thing to do. The cat didn't get a vote. A year later, I can thoroughly say it was indeed the right decision: our family feels complete and happy and wonderful! Thank you, Fae for making it so! The wiggles and giggles and smiles and adventures are all upon us, from morning till night. At 7am, whichever combination of two-out-of-three kids is awake first, they're together smiling and holding hands. Usually one is pulling another's hair, or trying to munch on their thumbs. Yesterday I returned from the restroom to find the children victoriously showing me Fae's sleep sack, that they had just taken off of her all by themselves! Gaius made a specia...

If you ask Gaius about it, he'll tell you over and over, with a sparkle in his eye that's hard to mistake for anything but excitement: "I'm really good at soccer!" .  He tells many stories, and as a typical 4yo he's winning in every single one, so we were taking it all with a grain of salt. That is, until this morning, when Greg was dropping Gaius of at school and got the message separately from two of the schoolteachers (one in his classroom, one in a different classroom): Greg : A teacher at the [school] just told me that Gaius is really good at soccer. That he has a lot of control and is very patient with playing with the younger children. And if I did not say it already, Kylie [his teacher] said the same thing, that he is a natural dribbler. So there may be more to it that just a 4yo's desire for greatness. We better get him some more soccer opportunities... 

Gaius is a wonderfully passionate story teller. He will talk for hours, once he finds an interested ear, and the worlds he creates are uniquely intriguing, filled with characters like DinDin , and PowerMan, and Mover (who doesn't actually move!). This week we went to Lego BrickFest for the first time, and both older children enjoyed it: Darth Vader encounter: Casual until the real life storm trooper walked in, at which point all Tener children decided to keep an eye out (including Fae, who was making sure Gaius and Mara's backs are covered): and the actual photo with everyone smiling: Free-building architectural structures Glowing bricks structures looked gorgeous in the black light: Here's a random kid who loved Mara's glowing bricks creation and started playing with it after we put it down: Mass group project to make a Lego floor Mosaic, we built three tiles fo...

Mara is about to turn 6. Just a few more weeks until the happy date, but she's already there mentally and physically. This summer she went: Kayaking at camp - first in her age group to kayak on her own without an adult during this whole summer, according to her camp instructors Biking on mountain trails - yes, she started biking with no training wheels after several months of sparse strider bike rides, and is so smooth at it now! Stand-up paddleboarding ( SUPing at Shoreline Lake ) which I've personally never even attempted. Greg got his opportunity to try it for the first time just this week, same location, with his coworkers. Horseback riding on Wizard who is a 30yo mare at Garrod Ranch . She can read piano music and play several songs with two hands on it - whenever she's patient and rested enough :-). She figured out the notes of "Doe, a Deer" and wrote them on sheet music one afternoon. Can swim end-to-end in the pool at swim class in a bunch of dif...

Gaius is talking a lot more! Coming back from a short visit to Crystal River with his grandparents, Gaius talked constantly through the 2h drive back. He has a new way to say "Twuck!" and is quite determined when showing & telling you all the parts of an airplane. But sweetest of all, on his first day back to school after our Florida vacation, his teacher Amy described the highlight of his day beautifully: We were using clay outside and he talked non-stop about the things he was creating (mostly marshmallows and dragons).  Yes, that sounds like him alright. Afterall, he's had dragon-filled dreams this summer.

Gaius just woke up in the car, and started gently telling me with a smile: Gaius: Open door. Gaius: I saw an open door. Me: You saw an open door? Nice. Was it in a car or in a house? Gaius: Dragon house. Gaius: Door was in a dragon house. He follows this with a long, quiet, contented smile. What's not to love... P.S: Here's what we had been up to, that morning around 6am: reading the numbers off of trams in a Romanian tram station:

I love observing how the children go through the different stages of picking up the language grammar rules. Two weeks ago Greg and the children pick me up from work from my desk. A nice coworker attempts to talk to the Gaius (2yo), and gets this quite stern, serious answer: Gaius: Me miss Mommy! After which Gaius protectively grabs my hand and drags me away. Now, two weeks later Mara, holding a handful of carefully selected grapes: Whoever is a kid and wants a baby grape, raise your hand up. Gaius: I'm raising my hand up! Mara: That's not raising it enough. Gaius, stretches it really high: I'm raising my hand up! Mara, with a satisfied smile: Yeah, that's it! You're doing it. Here is a grape. Did you see the "Me" vs "I'm" shift? 

Last night, Greg and Gaius went in Gaius's room for bedtime. After the lights were out and they were lying down, in the neighboring bedroom Mara had some sort of emotional breakdown when an item she wanted was two feet away (thus absolutely out of reach for ever and ever). Loud crying ensued, with crocodile-worthy tears. Here's the boys' assessment of the situation, from Gaius's bedroom: Gaius: Mara. Waah-waah. Baby. Gaius: Mara. Ice. Mee-Mee. Greg: Does Mara need ice and Amy*? Gaius: Yeah. * Amy is one of Gaius's teachers at school.

We've had a little fish tank for the past three years, and two of its long-living inhabitants are Zebra Danio fish. Last weekend, we noticed that the female had a veeery large belly. So Mara and I watched some YouTube videos on how they breed . It turns out they make fish eggs, not giving birth to live fish. This is called "spawning". According to the information we found, the parents are likely to eat the fish eggs if they see them. So, to avoid infanticide, we needed to place a net right below the parents that would allow the eggs to drop down quickly to safety. Here's our setup: We placed the lady and gentlefish in the tank with about two inches of water over the net. They started their little dance: Then we waited. About three days later, when we were about to declare that the fish parents were dancing just for fun, and that we would have to try again, our friends came over and spotted little dots in the water. At first, they were very sti...