Ethan was mispronouncing the word “mighty” so, as we tend to do, Ken sat down in front of the fridge with him and showed him with the fridge letters how to spell “might” so that he could understand (seeing the letters helps him hear the sounds better). They then started switching out the first letter to spell other “ight” words (knight, blight, sight, light, etc). After going through every word we could think of, Ken chuckled and said he was going to do something different and put up an “e”. Ethan immediately, and without pause, said (properly) “eight! HA HA! That’s eight!”

We got a little packet for the end of this semester’s marking period, included with it was a list of the sight words they’ve learned:

a, the, can, at, I, am, like, is, big, in, but, it.

Words that Ethan knows by sight:

beautiful, would, everything, curious, and how to read suffix’. (This is a short list – it’s hard to pull up random words to mind.)

His driver, Diane, suggests we have him tested for giftedness. I think we would, if it weren’t for his adhd and some issues with testing. Maybe next year things will be calmed down somewhat.

I think I’ll always be as thrilled as I am that he’s such an eager eater. I just love it to no end that anytime Victor sees me taking veggies to the side of the sink, he immediately rushes over, checks what I have, and asks “Can I haf sum ca-ROT? Pleas?” He wants to try everything. I tell him what I’m cutting and he wants to try it. He knows, now, that onions aren’t eaten until they’re cooked, same with garlic and ginger. His favourites are tied between carrots and red peppers, but everything gets tried – potatoes, eggplant, cucumbers (another favourite), broccoli (raw stems are yum). He adores cooked broccoli and mooched most of my broccoli last night (made beef & broccoli) even after he’d had his own rice. (On a side note, one of Ethan’s therapists once told me that she’d shown a picture of foods to Ethan and he didn’t know what one of them was – don’t recall which – but that he knew what broccoli was. She mentioned it because she often has children who *don’t* know what broccoli is. Seriously.)

The only problem with it all is his eagerness. If I turn my back he’s grabbing bites off the cutting board. Most frustrating is when he grabs the uncut veggies (whole carrots, cucumbers, peppers) and takes a bite out of them. It’s hilarious, but frustrating. He’s even done it in the garden. Last summer I gave him a cucumber to carry over to Ken (who had more of them). He did, but later we found a bite out of it. Who knows how the garden will fare this summer. I always wanted the kids to learn to go into the garden to snack. I’m thinking, in a year or two, I’ll need to plant him his own little mini veg garden to eat off of.

Further north, level/cleared land, house with character (and fireplaces and a wood cookstove). Barn/fencing/acreage enough to support animals. Guinea fowl (bug control), chickens (eggs & meat), sheep (wool & meat), llama or alpaca (hair & herd protection), cattle (milk & meat). Lottery winnings (to finance it all).

Prince(s) of the Cosmos (vid 5mb).

It’s a video game, and you can see it in the background. For those who don’t know, the Prince of the Cosmos is sent with his Katamari (little ball) to roll things up so he rolls around his ball and things stick to it and the ball gets bigger etc. It’s quite a bizarre and amusing game (and challenging!) and the boys love it. Ethan plays some, but it’s hard for him (and he gets frustrated easily) and Victor can’t really play at all but they love to watch and pretend to be rolling their own Katamari around. My little Princes are goofballs!

During the Christmas break, for a few days we gave Ethan yogurt cups for his afternoon snack. Two days. Only two because on those two days, after the yogurt, he started acting oddly. Oddly in the “silly to the point of manic”. We wracked our brains to figure out what was going on and we realized that the only odd thing was the yogurt (normally he has crackers or something). We looked at the label and the only conclusion we came up with was that he’s got a sensitivity to red #40. So we went through all the food the boys eat and eliminated that (not hard). The manic thing hasn’t happened since (at home, we found out it has at school though don’t know if that’s from before Christmas break or not).

This weekend we had boxed Mac’n'cheese for lunch on Saturday and that afternoon/evening Ethan, though differently, was acting oddly again. Yellow #5, and I think all chemical colourants, are now on the “Do Not Feed The Animals” list, now, too.

I know there was a bit of an outcry against food additives in the 80’s. I’m thinking they weren’t all that wrong and today’s chemical-laden foods need a closer look at them.

At least the yogurt is easy to replace (plain yogurt mixed with jam works great) and we didn’t eat M&C too often, before. I’ll need to find a replacement, though, if I can.