School is closed (home activities!)

Now that the schools are closed and we are working from home, life is a bit different -- there are a lot of positives, though, as we get to spend more time together at home.  For one, on the practical side, we got to clean out and redo our disastrous office as well as the garage, ah, what a difference!
As for the kids, a few major things were these:

• Stephen got potty trained!  He learned to pee in the potty over a few days, and never again peed in his diaper during nap or nighttime (he still sleeps with the diaper on, just in case).  Pooping took a bit longer, another week or two.  During that time, he simply refused to poop and got very constipated to the point where I had to use depository, but after two rounds of holding it and exploding a few days later, he realized that it's not so bad to sit on the potty and do business in it.  The motivating factor was that he was allowed to bring the potty into the bedroom and sit on it during the pre-bedtime reading.

 

• The crib has been decommissioned after 13 years, and so has the changing table!!!   Stephen moved into a real bed (he looks to cute and tiny in a twin XL bed!)  He is now sharing a room with James:  James on the top bunk, Stephen on the bottom, while Michael moved out of that room to his own room in the same hallway, and Sonja got Stephen's old room where crib used to be.  Everyone was happy on the first night, but then James realized that Stephen would keep him awake at night babbling  before falling asleep and now he is demanding his own room. Pfff!

• Stephen is talking more, but his language right now consists of words strung together without much grammar.  For example: 'To ja.' for 'that's me' or 'that's mine' (in Serbocroatian).  He doesn't add word endings or most of the connecting words.  Some of the latest words that are funny to hear and among his frequent ones are:
• faba (for 'zaba' = frog)
• soko (falcon in Serbocroatian); he refers to ducks in our neighborhood pond by 'soko', too, because we also see a lot of falcons and I like to point them out to him, so he figures all birds are 'soko'.
•  Jamesa (when he talk to James in English, he calls him James; but when he talks to him in Serbocroatian or refers to him when he talks to me, he adds 'a' at the end, as this is one of the versions of 'James' in Serbocroatian grammar, dependent on the use of the word in a sentence).
• Another funny grammatical thing he does is negations, like 'ne fuko fava' ( 'ne cuko spava' with a wrong word order in 'the doggy is not sleeping').
• When he hears the birds outside, he'll point them out by imitating them -- and when this happens during out walk around the neighborhood, the whole street can hear his cawing  (usually it's the crows that he hears, falcons sometimes, both very loud).  He'll caw 'Aaa-aaa-aaa' VERY loudly, adding 'ovako' ('like this') in a normal voice in between.
• laaalesh (sladoled =  ice cream)
• blana (banana)
• foba (soba = room)
• Stephen has always copied others and tried to repeat everything independently, and he is still like that:
• He brings his dishes back to the kitchen -- I keep repeating to his that he can just place them NEXT to the sink and not drop them into the sink, and I've managed to save a few glasses and glass bowl in the process by catching them just before he dropped them in the sink!  
• He wants to pull his underwear, shorts, pajama bottoms on and off (I try to help if he gets stuck without him noticing), and now he wants to take his shirts and pajama tops off (on is manageable), but that' a bit more challenging, so of course he gets stuck every time.. but he is still trying to figure it out.
• He now wants to hold Buck on the leash when we take him for a walk, although Buck is bigger than him, and it's very difficult to explain to him that this is not possible.
 



Stephen and James during our walk around the neighborhood

Stephen learned how to ride a scooter, and when he is not riding it himself, he asks Sonja to push him on it:

Stephen is still sucking his thumb, and sometimes he multitasks: one finger in his mouth and the other in his nose :)

As for the other kids who don't change as quickly as Stephen, well, they have grown up over the past few months and changed enough that it's worth mentioning.

Nikolas is only 3in shorter than me and his shoes are already bigger than mine.  He looks like a teenager that he is:  he likes to spend time on his phone chatting with his friends, he never shares anything about any girls, and when he talks to me it's usually trying to persuade me to buy him some popular electronic (ear buds, some game, LED strip to glue to the walls or a cool effect, etc.) or some piece of clothing of a trendy brand.

Michael is still modest and easy.  That's how he is.  He likes to do things for others.  At the moment, he is our main breakfast chef -- he learned how to make eggs in different ways, and he makes them for all kids before Robb and I are even up.  He also makes lemonade for everyone, and he is the main person in the house taking care of the dog.

Sonja is super-diligent about school, her friends, and her teachers.  She and Michael got accepted into the middle school for 'smart kids' as Sonja likes to put it for next fall.  She'll do great, I can tell.  She has figured out the online learning during this coronavirus period so quickly (she even helped me while I was trying to figure it out myself to help the other kids).  She is always on top of her work and usually a week ahead.  All that while she chats with her school friends and teachers... no wonder she is the teachers' favorite.  Too bad the soccer season is on pause because she is not spending enough time running around like before (she is not too motivated to play outside with her brothers, but at least she runs with me sometimes).

James is such a good reader, I'm impressed.  He gets things quickly.  He learned fast how to tell time on an analog clock, and he's been learning about money.  Addition and subtraction are a breeze to him.  If he were left to do whatever he wanted, he'd be on the iPad the whole time playing some games (the good thing is that there are some math games he likes that he doesn't realize were made for educational purposes).

Buck likes to sit in Stephen's carseat when Stephen is not in the car:

When the kids are not busy with homework, here is one type of the physical activity that we do (it's too funny, Stephen does it, too, and when he wants to do it, he does a burpee and says 'ovako':