Multicultural Kids

Greetings friends and family,

We happily visit friends with dogs because Easton and Layla enjoy playing with them.  We also happily declare our house as "pet-free" because we don't want to deal with pancreatitis, allergies, puke, or the cost of shots, food, replacement shoes, and furniture repair.  I imagine our feelings towards enjoyment of dogs to grandparenting.  Yes, we love dogs!  and we love to say good-bye and go home to a clean, quiet house.  

Our friend Matthew moved to North Phoenix and invited us to hang out for lunch.  He has a puppy the twins wore out playing together.

The puppy was pooped, but the twins never run out of energy.  ever.  So Matthew brought out his bongos to play on.  Layla is learning self-control.  The phrase "pianissimo" is not in her vocabulary.  She only knows one speed: Forte Fortissimo! (music; as loud as can be played)

Easton jumped into the fray with his own style of finger drumming.  Their melodies were frantic at best, but everyone starts somewhere.

Matthew gave them some basic training and played some examples of what it should sound like.

We also experienced a rare occasion where we truly just hung out.  We talked while sitting in the shade looking at the hills around his house.  The light breeze and perfect temperatures made it a perfect occasion to just chill.  Easton and Layla don't do this much.  I know it's our own making because they are never bored or required to just... be.  When there is a lull in the action at home they build a fort and play kitties and puppies or grab crayons and color.  Kendra says all six-year-olds have trouble sitting and doing absolutely nothing.  It may be normal, but it's not good.  We converse over dinner and during car rides with no problem, but just sitting and doing nothing is a foreign concept.  I'll search for solutions of how to build the skill of doing nothing, but i doubt there is a book for teaching six-year-olds the art of nothingness.

Another developing story is Layla's teeth that won't come out.  See those two big teeth behind the row of baby teeth?  Yeah, that's a problem.  Come to find out, Kendra had NINE teeth pulled out.  Layla is setup to spend several trips to the dentist over the next couple of years.  She'll have to get the front two teeth pulled out to make room for her adult teeth coming in.  I'm hoping for some good video of the trip home from the dentist.

And now we get to the multicultural event at the twin's school.  The first 20 minutes was just a bunch of kids hugging and talking.  It's not like they saw each other 3 hours earlier.  oh wait... they did just spend the entire day together.  The atmosphere was more like a 20 year high school reunion.  kindergartners are so funny to watch interact.  This is one of Layla's friends who I can't remember her name.  All I know is that she had both puppies on her head claiming she had "puppy ears".

After the 3rd grade class did a cheesy song and dance we wandered the halls where each class displayed their artwork and crafts associated with the country they studied.  Layla studied the Netherlands.  The windmill to her right with the rainbow colors is hers.  no surprise there.

They also had tulips with their picture hiding behind the petals.  I'm not sure how tulips are related to the Netherlands, but it was cute to see anyway.

Layla also learned about Van Gogh.  She did a great job of coloring the stenciled copy of his famous starry night painting.

I'm happy to see their school is giving them a broad view of the world and valuing other cultures.  The world they work in will be "global" in ways we never thought possible.  That reminds me... they better get to learning Spanish soon.  After viewing all of the contents of Layla's classwork we perused Easton's class.  They studied Russia.  He colored this Matryoshka doll, which was stuck to a toilet paper roll to add depth.  It's art!

His masterpiece was this picture with facts about Russia.  The picture he drew was of a rocket because, well, everything is measured by space travel according to Easton.

He brought this gem home school this week.  It says, "when i grow up I want to be" with a blank line.  he wrote:  a astrnot.  Then, at the bottom, the text says, "because" with a blank line.  He wrote: I want to go to mars.

Kendra and I looked at this and realized his fascination with space travel is more than just a fad of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or a superhero phase.  Whatever lights his fire!

See you soon.