October has been a busy month. Miles and CQ were in Japan visiting Ojiichama for his 100th birthday . There was huge celebration for him, with the City of Richmond, CA joining in the festivities since it was also the 50th anniversary of the Shimada Richmond sister relationship, which he helped start. Then, there was a three day Obi Festival, held only every three years. It is the celebration and reeanctment of the days when the Samurais would travel on foot to Old Tokyo. This is one of the bigger festivals in all of Japan. Most of the community join in the festivities. We missed them a lot although Teo, Niko and I kept busy visiting museums and parks. We’re glad everyone is back together now.
We are still coping with our miscarriage and are thankful for the emotional support we have received friends and family.
October is full of birthdays: Kelsey’s, Jaden’s, Kai’s, Ampa’s, Ethan’s, Dea’s, and also of anniversaries (our 9th!, and Virna and Roel’s). So every week we usually have a party to attend.
We have also been preparing for Halloween and Dia de los Muertos. For homeschooling studies, Miles is learning about the Aztecs, their culture and how they celebrated Dia de Los Muertos. It has also been fascinating to learn about their sun calendar. The boys helped me make a Day of the Dead banner and we baked skulls and strung them into necklaces. We will make an offrenda today, by coloring and drawing pictures of people and animals who are not with us any longer. On friday, we will make a Dia de Los Muertos bread, shaped into a skeleton. While the name of the holiday and the skulls make it sound scary, Dia de los Muertos is actually a happy celebration, when spirits come back to visit and and eat with us and be merry. Halloween, on the other hand, brings out the spooky creatures and is meant to be scary. Matteo and Miles will be Samurais for Halloween. Miles brought home from Japan some Hapi coats, which were used for the Obi festival. I found a hilarious Samurai wig for Teo to wear. Niko will be a bee.
Miles is now doing subtraction and double digit adding and subtraction as well as word problems. He really enjoys math so it’s never a chore. What is somewhat surprising is his reading. While he learned how to read fairly easily without my coaxing, he didn’t seem to have an interest in reading a book. But a few months ago, something clicked and now he can’t get enough. He is reading at a pretty advanced level and just seems to read words intuitively. Just today, he read the first four chapters of White Fang. I’m so excited to introduce him to many of the books I loved growing up!
Matteo surprises us when he does some addition or subtraction of his own. He has not shown as much early interest in math as Miles did at his age, but Teo is organically processing things on his own and then just surprises us with his newfound knowledge. He internalizes a lot of what he learns and then just blurts it out. Meanwhile, Niko is fast turning into a little boy. All if his sentences are commands, such as “TeTe (Teo)! Come!” Or “Mama! Eat!” (as in “I’m hungry”). He is even learning a bit of judo, keeping his head up and slapping the ground with his hands when he falls down on his back. When I give a 1-2-3 warning to the boys, he will say after I count “1″, “twwooooo”, which of course makes us all laugh.
As Thanksgiving is fast approaching, I am mindful of all that we have and for which we are blessed. We made a gratitude mobile the other day and it was nice to hear the boys take turns thinking of each gratitude.
