The month of February was a solid month of winter. The snow kept piling up with brief thaws mid-month (with thunder and lightning!), meaning that we had to fight to maintain our parking spaces at the house (having no garage) on a daily basis. Amazingly, we didn't go skiing once because Igor was too tired between biking and driving Nikita to chess; he then succumbed to the sore throat that hit everyone else in the house (I actually lost my voice while giving a lecture on oral presentations). Thankfully, we have a hill in the backyard. At one point, Ivan was able to slide down it without a sled - a good thing because our best sled got buried during one of the snowstorms.
We also began and ended the month with a focus on teeth: Ivan started brushing his teeth at the beginning of the month with real toothpaste, and Nikita finally lost his first (and second) tooth at the end of the month. I thought something was going to happen with Nikita because during his morning violin practice (of school vacation week), I noticed that his bottom front teeth seemed crooked all of a sudden. Apparently, they were loose for about a month ("The tooth keeps pointing out, and I keep pushing it back in with my tongue"), but he never told us. The first tooth actually fell out of his mouth while Galina was reading a story to the two boys. The second tooth was extracted by me; the extraction was easy because the tooth was practically lying on its side.
Speaking of reading, I'm making a more concerted effort to teach the boys to read, using Dr. Seuss for Ivan and the "I Can Read" series for Nikita. But perhaps the Smithsonian's Natural History will be more effective. Ivan can recognize and write out a few letters (he particularly likes T, H, and A); he also loves listening to the stories of the "I Can Read" series, particularly the Little Bear series by Else Holmelund Minarik. Nikita sometimes calls out words spontaneously when I read to him (Peter Pan - but it's not as gripping as last month's Alice in Wonderland). Yes, Nikita can still read music better than words, but I have to keep reminding myself that he is learning to read and write in three languages.
Nikita continued to win weekend chess tournaments, but he actually tied (3-way) for third place at a piano competition held at the end of the month. I posted his performance of Schumann's "Soldier's March" to my Facebook account. The judges thought he was a bit rushed (playing the second note consistently as a 32nd instead of a 16th). I was just happy that he nailed his notes because he wasn't able to do so half the time during the warm-up. After the competition, we had a surprisingly good lunch at a Ninety-Nine restaurant, and picked up a Lego set for Nikita.Other highlights with the boys included Nikita drawing again, inspired by 100 Days of Monsters. I also realized that while Nikita learned how to count by going up and down stairs, Ivan is learning to count by negotiating the number of cartoons he can watch. Times are changing, I guess.
As for me, my knitting needles are still on hold (just can't bear to fail again with the Transformer hat, I guess), but George Orwell got me reading fiction again. In particular, I read Animal Farm, and am nearly done with 1984 - a book I appreciate much more than I did when I tried reading it as a teenager. I also taught myself KenKen and learned about a super cool site, Brain Pickings. If Dan Pink were ever to revise his fabulous book, A Whole New Mind, this site would be listed as a resource.
