Bubble Tubes

I think I can already guess at how Jasmine would redecorate our house if she could. It would involve lots of water.

Bubble Boy

Kai playing with the bubble exhibit at the Children's Museum in Boston.

Rowan's Tale

I like taking pictures of my kids talking. They make the greatest faces, especially when telling a story. Sometimes I catch the same expressions on their faces that I have seen on my siblings or parents, or worst (gasp), my own.

Levitation

Another shot from the Children's Museum in Boston. Jasmine liked inserting the plastic balls into the tubes and then was utterly fascinated that they would come back and float.

Blue Rowan

We've had a bit of a Blue Man Group thang going on around the house since our trip to Boston. The kids got a chance to see the musical instrument exhibit at the Boston Children's Museum and later in the trip my mom took me to see the show live. I bought the DVD of their Rock Concert Tour and accompanying album Complex and that was all it took to make us all fans.

When I was in Home Depot, I detoured to the plumbing department. Rowan was amazed that they had a whole Blue Man Group section of the store.

Mermaid

I think she'd spend all her time in the water if she could.

Jasmine's climbed her way on to the growth charts, under 5% for both height and weight, but on the chart, gosh darn it.

She also is moving up to three days a week in preschool which should give that mighty brain of hers more to do than watch me try to get back into the swing of school myself. She's picking up words at a phenomenal rate and very carefully practicing her enunciation.

We also just got her latest eye checkup, we do it every six months or so. I was wondering if her prescription had changed since she suddenly lost interest in her glasses. At first, she would wear them from the moment she got up till she fell asleep, but the last couple of months, I couldn't keep them on her at all. Turns out, her prescription has gone from the -3 diopter range to the -9 diopter range, much more near-sighted than before. The doctor said it was a typical part of albinism and not to worry. So, sometime this week her new glasses should come in (rose-tinted even) and she should be able to see a fair amount more.

I wouldn't have guessed that she could see less than before. She's pointing out many things in pictures: clothing, gender of people, activities, parts of the body, etc. Even in fairly low contrast situations, she's correctly identified bowls and belts and so forth. Jasmine watches her brothers and has an uncanny knack for imitating not only their words, tone and voice, but also their body language. She also seems far less light sensitive than before. The doctor said those advances were probably due to her using and practicing using her eyes and coming up with effective coping techniques. Wow.

Content Kai

Kai has had an exceptional week. He's successfully undertaken some major self-improvement tasks. He even received a certificate from his teacher, "Most Improved Behavior" at the end of the week. I'm not exactly sure what spurred it on, but I'm certainly glad for it and he seems happy about it as well. Sometimes I think his biggest struggle is for the rest of his attributes to catch up with his great cleverness.

His schoolwork was at it's usual high level, so he received four other acknowledgements as well. He told me that he felt like he'd cheated on the bonus question of his spelling test: spelling the phrase "boiling point". I asked him why and he said that he had seen and remembered the phrase from a book he'd read rather than purposefully studying it. Isn't that a funny thing?

On a completely different subject, he's wearing his own tie-dyed creation that I alternately call "The Eye of Sauron" and "The Bullseye".