Mia has a new baby care set from the nearby electronics and toy store, Yamada Denki. It includes a front or back baby carrier. She hurried to open the box and put the carrier on, then headed up to get a baby doll from her room. When she came down she told me she had shown her brothers. They pointed out to her, and she had to agree, that carrying the baby on the front is better than on the back because no one can sneak up and put bombs and grenades and blow the baby up.

Let's see... what else is Mia up to? She is reading quite fluently, and choosing more challenging books every day. She is also showing understanding of advanced math concepts like multiplication. Now, if I show her a multiplication worksheet or even one written problem, she wouldn't know what to do with it. But, if we are playing a game that needs twelve cards laid out, she knows she needs 3 rows of 4. Or when make fuse bead creations, she'll count the four hooves of a horse and see that she needs four black beads for each hoof, so she'll get 16 black beads on her tray.
When we watch movies she pays close attention and asks questions and discusses things with me, like about the characters and their motivation, etc. We bowl once a week as a family, Monday nights, and she graduated from bowling with a ramp, and only uses the bumpers now. An unfortunate accident with her scooter left the basket cracked, so Simon generously gave her his razor scooter, a two wheeled scooter. She has been practicing with this and doing very well turning and using the brake. She delights in gardening with me, insists that I let her do it, and I am not allowed to help her. She has grown about two inches since last June. I am not sure how much weight she has gained, but I can tell she is filling out and is not the tiny little thing she used to be. We just got her some new clothes, and had to get size 6!

Last September she and Simon started taking violin lessons. Well that morphed into violin and/or piano and then Simon said he was done, and I think we decided that Mia's violin is too big for her (it digs into her neck). So now it is just Mia learning piano, and I even thought she was losing interest and said we would stop and give her a break, but that she could go back to it after a while. Of course she could still practice at home. Then she found out about the recital at the end of the semester, which I'll be performing with my cello, and now she wants to continue so she can perform on stage. She practices every day, sometimes first thing in the morning, I'll wake up to her playing downstairs. She is reading music, using the right and left hands independently, moving her fingers independently, and counting out notes (whole, half, quarter, etc) and rests too.

So that's what Mia has been up to, in short. I will post about the boys individually in the next day or two. Gotta go make supper, cut the boys' hair, and get them all bathed and in bed early. This gorgeous weather has had them outside all day for two or three days now.