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Monsoon! The rains are upon us, though so far the puddles in our neighborhood have only reached ankle depth. It’s kind of funny, we look out the windows of our house on one of these days and with air conditioners bringing the temperature down to a comfortable level, we can easily imagine that it’s November back in the Bay Area and a chilly 50° outside. Opening the front door just a crack though reveals the truth – it’s still about 90°; it just happens to be raining torrentially. The past month has seen Tasman make some great strides in pre-literacy skills. He’s constantly asking how things are spelled, and has lately developed a fascination with punctuation. Every time we read a story, he points out all the semicolons, dashes, apostrophes, and commas. How do you explain to a four-year-old the differences in the amount of time you’re supposed to pause after a comma, semicolon, or dash? His counting is also great, and he’s able to just keep going, much longer than we actually need to hear him in order to prove his abilities (in case he’s reading this!) Atlas seems in a headlong rush to emulate his brother in this regard. He’ll point to individuals items in a group and count off, “One, two, three, four,” and then go back to “One”. Adham finished doing a one-month rotation with the Embassy’s public affairs section – a very different line of work from interviewing visa applicants. It’s been a fascinating change of pace, as it has given him a chance to write remarks for the Ambassador and Deputy Chief of Mission to deliver in public, analyze local press coverage of US policy, and prepare outreach efforts for an upcoming visit by a US hospital ship. We of course celebrated Mother’s Day in May, and Crystal’s boys did their best to pamper her all day long. Crystal continues to manage our household on a daily basis, which will be an even more daunting task once school lets out and she needs to find ways to keep two energetic boys occupied on a daily basis for the better part of three rainy months… Photos of the kids, mostly, this month - | ||||
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