All 16 lights are on. Full energy.

Binbin has been in fourth gear learning, it seems, more and more quickly every day. He has quickly advanced from knowing, for example, how all the individual pieces in chess move to seeing and judging better moves from worse.

On the reading front:

We are on the verge of transitioning from a mixture of picture books, comic books, easy readers, and chapter books to classics. One afternoon, Binbin started gathering what he called "big boy books" from his old bedroom bookshelf and bringing them down by the armfuls into the living room. He showed us each title, and based on whether Jack or I or both of us had read it, Binbin sorted them into 3 piles. Out of the multiple piles, he selected Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book as his new nighttime reading. The quality of vocabulary, crafting of prose was immediately apparent.

What Binbin has learned: the meanings of words such as "thy" "thee" "thine" and "ye."

What we have learned: classics work make good bed-time reading.

On the math front:

What Binbin has learned: Using two 20-sided dice, Binbin is now doing addition requiring "carrying over," and doing this with more consistency. He rolls the two dice, which determine the numbers to be added. We write 4 problems down to make a set. Binbin does the adding, I check his work.

What I have learned: Adding is way more fun when 20-sided dice are involved.

april showers

We're getting some of that wild and crazy weather that happens when the earth starts tilting to spring in the northern hemisphere. That means almost alternate days of running around in shorts and of shoveling snow off the driveway.

This weekend, the perfect blend of warm sunshine and lots of snow came together for us at Sunday River. We piled into a studio condo at the base, and spent Friday and Saturday skiing the slopes. Binbin started off on easy greens, especially Broadway near the magic carpet. It wasn't long, though, before he graduated to more challenging and newer terrain. (I should acknowledge Jack's saintly patience working with Binbin to get himself down a run ironically called "Dream-maker.") With Chris as our guide and Cooper as Binbin's inspiration on Saturday, we made the crossing from North Peak way over to the east side, where Binbin coasted down Green Cheese and Moonstruck. On his last run of the weekend, he following Chris' big, easy turns all the way down Monday Mourning.

That brings us to this Monday morning, which began with a crack of thunder, a 90-second downpour, and a brief power outage. Tulips and crocuses are pushing their way through the gravelly soil, and...what's that sound...birdsong cheers them on. It's spring.

Brief report on Binbin:

He and Jack have gotten the green light to join the chess club at Lisbon Community School.
Cooper couldn't believe that a kindergartner, our Binbin, knew the word "desperately" and knew about vitamins.
After a visit to the Kuceras, Binbin brought home a DVD of anime (Cooper is a Japanophile) and the book "Everyone Poops".
A trail of Binbin's legos now meanders through just about everyone room in the house.
Once a week now, Binbin is part of a group that meets with Mrs. Thomas for more in-depth academic work. Last week, they worked on narrative development of a story fragment concerning five barefoot monsters from Santa Cruz.
We're reading Stephen and Lucy Hawking's book about George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt.
Binbin has mastered the snowplow skiing technique.
While not paying attention to Jack's reading of the Hawking book, Binbin's mind wandered to a laugh-out-loud scene from "Shaun the Sheep."

April vacation is coming up next week, and perhaps sometime then, we'll have some pictures to post for you die-hard readers.