Jay and Julie: Some of the Girls' Words, and Theo Likes Math

Theo was talking to our smart speaker.

Theo: Echo, what's 10x10?

Echo: Ten times ten is one hundred.

Theo: Echo, what's 100x10?

Echo: One hundred times ten is one thousand.

Theo: Echo, what's 1,000x10?

Echo: One thousand times ten is ten thousand.

. . .

It continued until Theo got tripped up asking about what ten trillion times ten was. I really don't think what he said was an intelligible sentence at all.

But Echo somehow responded: The answer you are looking for is one hundred trillion.

I still wonder if she somehow decoded Theo's stumbling sentence or if her AI recognized that he was just asking the previous answer times ten. I was really impressed.

Theo has asked Echo these math problems multiple times and seems really interested in it. He had also asked me it and after the first time that I answered, I told him that was a good question for Echo. I also dislike figuring out how, "Mommy, how many zeros in ten billion?" sorts of questions.

Don't get me wrong. We do other more fun things with math. I showed him how fun multiples of 9 are -- that you add the digits of any multiple of 9 (and keep adding if your solution has more digits than 1) and you'll always get 9. And I showed him how the times table 1-10 for 9s can be written by writing 1-9 on the tens digit and 9-1 on the ones digit.

We discuss how 25% is the same as one quarter which is another way to say one fourth.

But his 10s game and figuring out what the really big numbers are called and how many zeros are in each. . . I don't consider that very fun. I'm glad he has an AI to help him.

Theo was out sick from school with a mild cold I think 3 weeks ago. I wore a mask around Theo. I wore one around the girls in case I already had it. Jay was sick the week after. Since Theo tested negative for COVID-19 we were only somewhat concerned. Then several days passed and suddenly I caught it this last week, so I wore a mask a whole lot again. I've been feeling much better since Wednesday and finally stopped wearing a mask on Friday. The girls still haven't gotten it.

Theo told me he hopes he doesn't get sick again because he missed music class last time and the next music class he was the only one who didn't know the new song. We didn't really worry too much about his schooling since he is ahead, but I understand him missing the Duck Song.

Wendy and Miri are learning lots of words. Miri really likes repeating words that you say. Wendy is less of a people pleaser and likes to instead cleverly learn a word and use it at an unexpected time and then say it again and again until you congratulate her.

One funny thing is that the girls started asking for a drink around the same time. Miri would ask for "water," but usually drop the "t." Wendy would declare with perfect pronunciation , "Cup!" After a few days Miri stopped calling it "wa'er," and now also asks for, "cup," like Wendy did.

The girls have grown and apparently got tall enough to reach their headbands. I came in to see Wendy with 2 on and Miri wearing 1 and they both ran up excitedly yelling, "Bow!"

"Bow!"

They like pretty things. They love to put their pretty socks on -- and basically never have a pair that matches. But even better than pretty socks are the Paw Patrol socks they found that were Theo's years ago. They put them on and yell, "Doggie!"

An Incomplete List the Girls' Words:

Dog (it was all my kids' first word), Dada, cheese, hat, shoe, sock, shirt, pants, cup, water, Mommy, walk, get up, here you go, hot, cold, book, bye-bye, bow (the kind you wear in your hair), uh oh, all done, cracker, ham, go, ouch, hurt, sheep, baa, duck, quack, help, hands, hair, boop (and then they touch your nose), eye, Brown Bear, hop

I often still carry the girls to their high chairs, one at a time, since they get into so many things when I let them loose. But I asked Wendy if she wanted to walk one day. That was a mistake. She ran to the front door yelling, "Walk! Walk!" She thought I was inviting her on a walk, rather than to walk to the kitchen to eat dinner.

The girls used to say, "hot," and blow on imaginary food, but then I wore a mask for so many days around them and no longer blew on their food. Now they say, "hot," and use their hands to fan the imaginary food while I fan the real food.

Jay had taken a cold shower but was dressed when Wendy took off her onesie. She climbed into Jay's lap and he put his arms around her. She said something and Jay asked, "Did she say 'cold'?"

I told him I didn't know that she knew that word.

Wendy then said, "Cold, shirt," and grabbed her onesie, "Cold, shirt! Cold, shirt!" So that's how we discovered that Wendy knew that word. Jay helped her put the onesie back on.

Julie, Jay
Miri, Theo, Wendy

Miri
She wants to take the doggie with her everywhere. When she leaves it somewhere and then calls for it, sometimes Wendy will bring it to her. Wendy has accepted it is Miri's.

Wendy

Miri only ever gives kisses to one person or thing, and it's this dog.
Wendy started it. Wendy has also kissed the top of my head like 3 times and that's it. Mostly the girls kiss this dog.