More kid pictures

I'm enjoying so much the funny things they say! Since forever Valerie's been pronouncing "each other" rather oddly and I finally figured out that all along she's been saying "you 'chother." And Gabriel says it the same way! Right now they are really starting to talk in Spanish a lot - especially on school days. They sing "arroz con salchicha" (it's supposed to be "arroz con leche") :-)

I might update this as I remember more things...

Dissertation week

This week has been fun for me because I took the whole week to sit around drinking green smoothies and working on my dissertation! I hope to do this about once a month so that there could actually be a chance of finishing someday... Thanks Terry for covering at the office!

Kids update

It's been a while since I've given a good kid update here - not sure how far I'll get today but I'll see what I can get down.

They are growing so fast...

They ask so many questions these days! This has led into protracted ongoing discussions about death, God, marriage, and tear gas (among many other topics). Sometimes it's fun to try to answer their questions and sometimes it's baffling. Sometimes I make up something that's complete nonsense, at least when it seems like they're asking just to ask and not really out of a desire to know.

Valerie in particular is very into story-telling at the moment; she asks us for endless tales of our growing up years (genres include "a time when you got hurt," "a time when you lost something," "a time when it was no fun", etc.) and she also makes up hilarious stories of her own. Sometimes Gabe will just sit and listen to her while she spins a yarn about My Little Ponies and bulldozers (invariably either the pony or the bulldozer dies, then God heals it, and the others come and get it off the clouds).

It's been really fantastic lately watching them learn to play together well. The other day they invented a game of throwing little green balls from a plant down the stairs, and if the ball stopped on a crack in the tiles it was a score, but not if it landed in the middle of the tile. One of the teachers at school told me, "they adore each other." They also fight like banshees, but they really do love each other as well. 

Last week they also both made a big leap in terms of using Spanish. Songs have been the best way by far for them to learn words and phrases. Their babysitter, Luz, sings with them a lot, and they've been learning a lot of songs at school too.