latest news

Well, these days Jason is a reading fool. Yesterday I was reading to him from one of his 'hard' books -- a short novel about the Exo-Force teams. I stopped to help Xander with something and Jason picked the book up and, with a little help on some of the words, proceeded to read two pages to me. I am impressed. He is reading all the time -- sometimes when one wish he would not! And he is working very hard on learning/figuring out the spelling of things. As you can imagine, given the state of the English language, this sometimes proves a confusing process...
Jason is also back to chess. For the past two nights, as part of his 'going to bed' ritual, he and his father having been playing chess. Jason has definately matured. He doesn't get deeply upset when he does not win, just comments 'I am getting closer to beating daddy every game.' And actually, Tom told me last night that, during their second game, Jason was doing VERY well -- until he got frustrated wanting SOMETHING to happen and made a bad trade. Patience is a learned skill.
As for Xander, he is trying to learn to read as well. He will bring me a book and say 'Help me read this, Mommy.' And so we work together. He so wants to be able to do what his big brother does! Indeed, right at this moment, the two boys are in Jason's Lego space and are working, more or less amicably, on building lego sets. Xander is mostly interested in the Mini Figs -- but he is generally willing to follow Jason's directions -- especially since he knows that that is the ONLY way he will be allowed in his brother's space.
Grin. I wish I had had batteries in my camera yesterday. Jason decided to teach Xander how to play chess. It was a scream to watch and listen. Jason was EXTREMELY patient with Xander.
'Xander, please, bring back my knight. We can't play Chess if the pieces keep
wandering off the board.'
or
'Xander, maybe you would like to watch me play a chess game and then you can
see how it is done?'

( That didn't work. Jason played against himself "OH MAN! I GOT BEAT!" and Xander went off to play the Thomas Train counting game 'BY MYSELF!')

At any rate, we have lots coming up. Tomorrow is our first *playgroup* in Tacoma with one of the local homeschool groups. We will see how that goes. Then Friday we are scheduled to go see the Tall Ships in Tacoma and Saturday, of course, is the Pool party for Xander (and Jason). IT should be a very busy time. I am debating whether I should try and make the cake myself or, given the Tall Ships thing, order it made. Probably the latter is the better part of valor.
And it turns out that, sadly, Matt and Maggie will not be coming to Seattle. They are talking about going to Tucson for Christmas but I am not sure that we will be able to do the same. Will have to work the finances and see what I can swing. Wouldn't it be nice to win the Lottery?:>