We have a book that teaches the girls addition. It has sticks of different lengths and you can count up the squares that make up each stick. If you line up, for instance, the 2-stick and the 3-stick, it will match the 5-stick. Tonight, the kids seemed to have a break-through on what this means for addition.

Later, I showed Miranda how this also corresponds to adding on one’s fingers. Here’s a video of her adding.

[If you can’t see the Flash player above, you can download the video in MP4 format appropriate for an iPod: MP4 (1.2MB).]

It takes her a little bit of time to configure her fingers correctly, but she gets it.

The kids said on Thanksgiving you eat chicken, turkey, meat, grapes, noodles, and rice.

We recently replaced the Sound of Music with Mary Poppins in our home, and the kids seem to be most interested in the songs that the Dad sings. The kids have been singing the last song of the movie, Let’s Go Fly a Kite.

[If you can’t see the Flash player above, you can download the video in MP4 format appropriate for an iPod: MP4 (3.4MB).]

For those who can’t make out what the girls are singing, here are the lyrics:

With tuppence for paper and strings
You can have your own set of wings
With your feet on the ground
You’re a bird in a flight
With your fist holding tight
To the string of your kite

Oh, oh, oh!
Let’s go fly a kite
Up to the highest height!
Let’s go fly a kite and send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Oh, let’s go fly a kite!

Tonight Miranda ate a whole fried California grunion–head included.

Last week, my paternal grandmother, the twins’ Ah-zho (great-grandmother) died. She was ninety-seven years old. I’m not sure how to explain this to the kids. They’ll ask about her when we go to my parents’ house. She lived with my parents since 1991, so the kids will probably go into her bedroom and ask why she isn’t there. I guess I’ll just tell them the truth, although their only context for death is when we tell them not to touch the dead earthworms and insects around our apartment building. “Dead” means “not moving”.

The kids have known their great-grandmother since they were born. She used to hold them and sing Japanese folk songs. Her voice was shrill and warbly, but the kids seemed to like it. She liked feeding them, especially Miranda, who would open her mouth to whatever strange Taiwanese snack my grandmother was offering her. When the kids were older and started feeding themselves, my grandmother would hover around them, picking up all the crumbs that would fall onto the table.

She didn’t use their names. She called Eleanor “big eyes”, and Miranda “good eater”. Despite not speaking the same language, the kids were close to their great-grandmother. They liked to give her hugs and show her their drawings. They never thought it was strange when she started using a walker, and later, a wheelchair. Recently, when we were at a restaurant, an old woman walked in with a walker. Miranda pointed and said, “Hey, Ah-zho has one of those.”

The two-month old twins on their great-grandmother’s bed.

Eleanor with Ah-zho on her first Christmas.

Ah-zho helping 15 month old Eleanor to walk.

Dinnertime with 18 month old Miranda.

Last Thanksgiving with two-year old Eleanor.

After pointing out that her lion stuffed animals doesn’t have whiskers, Miranda remonstrated us, saying, “Don’t tell me lions are cats.”

We’re at Disneyland, but we’re about to leave so the kids can take a nap. Local fires have been dropping ash all over.

Eleanor’s rebuttal to my explanation of why Agnes had to go on a trip for work: “But I like my mommy…”

At the end of the Cat in the Hat, it asks “should we tell her about it?” and “what would you do?”. Eleanor said yes. Miranda said no.

Wow. The entire month of October went by, and I didn’t manage to post the September 2008 photos until tonight.

A lot happened in September. We moved to our new apartment and moved the kids into beds. Albert and Erin came out to attend a wedding and visited for a few days. The kids started at their new school.

I partly credit the new school for a lot that the kids have been learning recently. We haven’t really been teaching the kids to continue counting beyond twenty, but we found that they could continue up to twenty-nine. Then, Miranda guessed that the next number was twenty-ten. Unfortunately, as we made our way up to forty, she also guessed that there might be a thirty-ten.

Miranda has also been able to sound out the first letter for many words. She’ll ask what different words start with, then repeat the word over and over to get the initial sound, and then declare what she thinks it starts with. She’s often right, but gets tripped up on some words like “tree” or words that start with “ch”, “th”, “sh”, etc. I’ve tried helping her sound out whole words that she sees in our books, such as “bed”, but she can’t make the connection between the individual sounds and the entire word yet.

The kids have also been learning to express their emotions better, as well as start to think a bit about why things happen. This is part of the school education program. One day, Effy bought the kids some Sesame Street cookies in the shape of different letters. She found an M for Miranda, but couldn’t find an E. She gave Eleanor an F and said that Cookie Monster must have eaten part of it. Eleanor declared “That makes me sad!” before bursting into tears.

Because these pictures are so late, the kids’ development since the last monthly update is started to blur with what has been happening during October. I’ll just post those pictures soon, and continue the update from there.