January 29, 2017

1) Reading: Today we read, as a family, 3 chapters from Voyage of the Dawn Treader: "The Dufflepuds Made Happy," "The Dark Island," and the "The Three Sleepers." I've always found the description of the dark island to be one of the most compelling parts of the book. At bedtime, Jamie asked to read an Arthur Geisert book I'd never read before, Mystery. He had already read it to himself and knew how it turned out.


January 30, 2017

1) Reading: This evening we read Jamie's school library book, a book about Copperheads.

2) Quote: It's not exactly a quote, but he whispered so adorably when reading out loud the parts of the copperhead book that described them as eating mice and rats. (This was to avoid traumatizing Ulli, Sabine, and Gustav).

1) Reading: Yesterday I only read to Jamie for a few minutes, right before bed, from Harry Potter. Today we did one of our Hi Lo excursions and read for about an hour, all about Harry's first divination class with Professor Trelawney.

2) Quote: Tonight I told Jamie I was going to turn off the computer and not look at the news any more for the rest of the evening. He suggested that maybe I'm paying too much attention to the news and should just ignore it. I told him that I usually prefer to do that, but that I think the things happening today are too important to ignore. However, I said, I can certainly not look at it in the evenings. "Yes," he said seriously, "because I worry about you not being able to sleep." I don't know what I said to give him that impression -- I guess I need to be more careful what I say! -- but what a sweetheart.

January 26, 2017

1) Reading: Today we read (in 2 installments, 15 minutes during breakfast and 10 minutes at bedtime) about Harry's train ride to Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It's the section where the dementors come on the train and Professor Lupin intervenes and then gives the kids chocolate to help them recover. I find this to be one of the most memorable scenes in the series. Reading it in two bits like that was probably not the most effective way to read it, but whatever.

2) Quote: While we were discussing the dementors, I was trying to explain that they're basically bad, but on the good side. At first Jamie seemed to be leaning toward the idea that they were "naughty" and perhaps rather cute and playful. I said I thought it was more that they were really bad at heart, but had been captured by the good guys and forced to do what the good guys wanted. Jamie said, "Kind of like nipweeated?" After about a 1-2 second delay, I realized he meant "manipulated." I know we're working on his L's, but I will be sad when he stops saying ambweeance and binocweears. "Nipweeated" might be the best one yet.

January 25, 2017

1) Reading: this afternoon Jamie asked for two stories from the Pooh books: "In Which Pooh and Piglet Go Hunting, and Nearly Catch a Woozle," and "In Which Tigger is Unbounced," which he prefers to call "In Which Rabbit is Unbossed." At bedtime we read "Building a House"from Richard Scarry's What People Do All Day.

2) Quote: this evening at dinner we were discussing the Air and Space Museum in DC, and telling Jamie they had old planes there. He asked if they had the planes that the Navy flew in the Revolutionary War.