country life

Just spent a half hour sitting outside on my porch with my kids eating lunch -- at the end of November, in Northern (well, at least to a Torontonian, anyways) Ontario. Incredible. Climate change: not so great for low-lying Pacific islands, FANTASTIC for far-flung Canadian hinterlands.

We've had a quiet time up here without Phet. We all get up around 5:30, laze about for awhile, have some tea and breakfast, have a big communal bath, get dressed, and if it's a school day we then head out to school. In a side note, thinking about school and apostrophes, Ji's school features two doors directly across from the main office, one labelled "girls bathroom" and the other labelled "girl's bathroom". Dear, dear. But back to our day. We then spend the rest of the daylight hours doing things like tidying up, toting wood hither and yon, building fires, roasting marshmallows, feeding the baby, watching Wallace & Gromit, sweeping and puttering. Ji also adds in some time spent drawing inventions, smashing up stuff with his hammer, pincering things with various dastardly implements from his tool box, and of course talking to himself, usually in full ten minute segment quotations from movies and tv shows. It's been fun. Then we go to bed at the dark and frosty hour of 7:30 pm. It's so ridiculous; it gets dark here at 3:30. The sun is halfway careened down the horizon now, and it's just barely 2:00.

This weekend we will be celebrating Ji's fifth birthday in Toronto. He's cornered all markets and has each friend and relatively carefully coached to be buying him one of the things he most wants. Man, that kid can hatch a plot.

For today's viewing pleasure: videos of Ji talking about the kids at school and about trying to make friends.

[Ji Hong-22-November-2006]