[Continuing as chronological, tho already blogged much of this as current… hope this not too confusing.]

July 23, 2022

Oh lord! June’s pretending to talk on a phone (one of her dominoes), and she tells me that her pretend brother called and wants to go on a date. I tell her she can’t, because she’s too young, plus no dates with her brother! She calls him back and says, quite emphatically, “I’m not going!” Then she tells me that he’s not happy and is threatening to have her arrested! Oh lord. She’s four.

Aug. 2022

The kids are in school now. Things are going well so far, though the run up was hard! Getting ready and being emotionally prepared has been stressful for us both. June was doing “pretend school” tonight, and came out of her room in a skirt and wearing her backpack. She struck a pose and asked, “Don’t I look cute!!?”

June has been sick and missed a few days this month … we’ve all been sick off and on. I guess stuff they’re picking up at school. I got a negative on a COVID test, so I guess it’s not that. June is loving school and Marvin’s hating it. Everyone else seems to be doing okay, though I don’t hear much from the other kids. Lucy went on a tour out west with a circus group, had a great time.

Sept. 2022

June continues to amaze us with her learning — and drive us crazy with her stubborn willfulness. She loves playing with scrabble letters and dominoes and is learning letters and numbers. She also has the concept of adding! She loves trying to write her name, and other letters and numbers. She uses very advanced words and phrases such as “a gust of wind” and “illness.” And she’s forever asking “Why?” or “What does that mean?”

October 2022

June and Marvin loved our Eden family gathering at Gene’s. Baby Hugo was the cutest thing, and June and Sophia loved playing with him together. Eight kids in their generation there.

November 2022

We were playing with the TicTacTony toy, which has red and blue discs. June arranged them as a flower and said, “It’s called the red and blue flower, written by James Carolina!”

A weird comment from the girl: “ All those boys are so stoopid! They don’t like their wives!” Shrugs her shoulders. (As part of some fantasy play with a pretend meeting- June on her “phone”!)

She’s learned the concept “equal.” And, amazingly, she read correctly all the numbers in the table of contents in one of our books! I had to help her a bit with 109, but she got the other hundreds correct.