5 and 8

Hello everyone. Long time no write. I thought I would give a birthday update since the girls just turned 5 and 8.

Audrey at 5

Audrey is starting Kindergarten this year, at home with Hosanna. She taught herself to read when she was 4 1/2 and has moved very quickly from basic picture books to more advanced reading. Tonight, she picked up The Longest Night - a book that we have read to her a few times, but not often, and that she has never read aloud herself before - and read it to me with little assistance.

In addition to reading, her favorite activities are pretending to be a superhero (Robin and Wonder Woman top her list), playing music (she's pretty good on both piano and drums, and took drum lessons with Alex Jenkins at Skip's Music for most of the year), rough housing, water play, Legos (Batman superheroes are her favorite), and making a big mess out of whatever is available.

I hope this is the last time I ever have to write about her sleep habits. She started sleeping through the night consistently somewhere around age 4 1/2. I am now resisting the powerful urge to write a long passionate essay about how much I love sleep, about how grand it is to have our nights back, etc, etc. Instead I will dial that back to a simple expression of deep gratitude for the gift of good sleep.

Audrey is a powerful force of nature and can throw a tantrum like no one else. Her screams could shatter glass. Hell, her screams could shatter a six foot thick concrete wall. I'm serious. She's got lungs. Sometimes she works herself into unresolvable conundrums and the only way out she can find is a full bore meltdown. I tell you what: they are tough to watch, tough to go through with her - but god damn I love that kid, and in a way, every huge meltdown just makes me respect her more. She is truly a force to be reckoned with.

Audrey's got a love-hate relationship with clothes. She loves (LOVES!!!) to play dress up. She hates (HATES!) to put on the clothes you are asking her to put on. She can get naked faster than a nuclear super collider can smash atoms. She's got issues with my repeated requests (some might call it cajoling) to not run around naked in front of our house.

Aria at 8

Aria is now in 2nd grade, and doing her schooling through a combination of home school with Hosanna (two days a week) and private instruction at the Wonder Tree Homeschool Collective (three days a week). Wonder Tree is the brain child of a group of parents who pooled their resources and hired an instructor, an absolutely wonderful woman named Leslie Olaya (whom we ADORE!!!), for their home schooled kids. At Wonder Tree, Aria is learning core subjects like reading, writing, math, and science, plus Spanish (Leslie is bilingual). They also do intensive units on special subjects. For example, right now they are studying "change makers" - kids who are doing amazing things in the world. The curriculum for Wonder Tree is a joint effort between the parents and Leslie. I'm really impressed with it.

Aria likes most subjects in school. She's pretty well-rounded, doing well at reading, writing, math, science, music, and art. She gets excited by lots of things.

When Aria's not in school, she gets a lot of free play time to express herself, which she often does through art, music, dancing, and reading (she loves comics like Garfield, Superman, and Calvin & Hobbes).  Oh yes, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that she loves (LOVES) video games, in particular Pudding Monsters and Papa Pear Saga. She also likes to ride her bike, but really only in certain situations. She won't get it out and ride around the neighborhood, but when we were camping up at Wright's Lake last month, she rode it around the campground almost non-stop for three days.

Aria also loves Legos and still does a lot of pretend play. She shares the whole disdain-for-clothing thing with her sister. She's bored by baseball on the radio, but will consent to go to a game, especially if we're playing the Tigers (she likes the name, but the A's are still her favorite team - right honey!?!??!). I love her infinity * one hundred million googols * the universe. She's amazing.

Sisters

I am not sure if these two are best friends or mortal enemies. I guess they are both. One minute they are playing happily, running around the house, screaming with joy, making huge messes (!), squirting each other with water in the back yard, jumping on the couch. The next minute, they are screaming at each other with unmatched vituperative hatred. Or Audrey is crying at the top of her lungs and Aria has run into their bedroom and locked the door. Or Aria is crying at the top of HER lungs and Audrey is walking away with a hot smug look. Seriously, it's like Real World meets Jersey Shore meets Romper Room meets a Prozac commercial.

Did you know they play in a band together? They call it Magenta. They wrote a song (with a little help from Mom & Dad). Audrey sings and Aria plays the drums. They also do a cover of a Coldplay song ("In My Place") on which Audrey plays the drums and Aria sings. The parents provide accompaniment in the form of bass and piano. It's pretty fun.

Sometimes they are both pretending to be animals. Often, Aria is a kitty cat, or a saber tooth, or a dinosaur of some stripe. Audrey prefers to be a cat, sometimes a dog, sometimes something more vicious.

Another thing they love to do together is watch YouTube videos of Just Dance (a Wii game) and learn how to do all the dance moves. They spent a long time this summer learning Gangham Style, Da Funk, Never Gonna Give You Up, Papa Americano, and others I can't remember.