All About Mo Willems

I've heard on the radio recently that at this time a couple of years ago this area was going through a drought.  It is hard to believe because it has rained nearly every day for a couple of weeks now and the forecast has it raining every day for the next week as well.  The oddest thing is waking up to thunderstorms.  We've always been used to them in the evenings, but these are starting even before it gets light out.  This week we decided to embrace the rain instead of avoid it.

It started out with the boys wanting to act out their favorite Mo Willems books.  The two characters in many of them are an elephant named Gerald and his friend Piggie.  They acted out "Should I Share My Ice Cream?" first.  Naturally, they had to eat ice cream cones to act it out.  Henry, aka Gerald, was supposed to have his ice cream melt and fall to the ground while deciding whether or not to share his ice cream with Josiah, aka Piggie.  Henry, left the script behind and licked his ice cream cone instead of letting it drip all over the ground.  Good man.  After the ice cream cone story we had a decent rain storm and the boys wanted to act out "Do You Want to Play Outside?" in which the elephant and pig go outside to play and it promptly rains.  The boys started out just playing nicely in the rain, talking in their Gerald and Piggie accents.  Then Josiah's shoe broke, so he took off his shoes.  Henry followed suit.  After his shirt got soaked, Josiah asked to take that off as well, and of course Henry followed suit.  Then they decided to pick the weeds out of the driveway.  That was followed by throwing them at each other which devolved into a mud slinging fight, but a happy one.  At the end they were thoroughly wet, dirty, and happy.

Today Josiah set up a library for Todd and I to visit.  He and Henry were the librarians and Josiah read us a Mo Willems book for story time and then taught us how to draw the characters from the book as our activity.

We went to the real library on Thursday and got about 10 of these books.  Upon checking out, Caroline noticed a Gerald and Piggie poster hanging up in the children's area.  She shrieks, "Piggie! Piggie! Piggie!" over and over again.  Josiah said he needed to have a quiet time in our room so he could read his books.  He ushered all of us out and closed the door.  Since he doesn't know how to read silently yet, he read the books out loud, and quite loudly.  Todd gives the characters accents and Josiah tried to follow that.  Gerald gets a bad British accent and Piggie gets a high-pitched sort of voice.  Josiah's had a lot of practice with British accents because of his Thomas trains, (which have had a resurgence in interest this week).

When not reading, Josiah taught Henry how to climb door jambs.  Henry can get up a bit and just stay in place.  When he tries to do actual climbing, he falls immediately.  However, he is quite proud of himself.  

The master and his student

Caroline has already discovered how to annoy her brothers.  Often, when Henry tries to talk to me or ask me a question, she will get next to him and start yelling with a smile on her face.  He, of course, gets super mad and frustrated which only encourages her to do it more.  Where did she even learn this?  This has never been in the boys' wheelhouse of things to do.

She is also working on her upper body strength by vacuuming the same strip of floor for 15 minutes straight.  She wants no help vacuuming, but she doesn't have the strength to move it around the room in different directions.  So she just goes back and forth.  It looks painful after a while, she has got to be building up some biceps.  Every time I take the vacuum back it becomes a struggle.  She has her opinions and she is not afraid to share them.  One big accomplishment we've noticed this week is that she recognizes the letters, C, D, H, J, & M.  She knows for whom each letter stands as well (Caroline, Daddy, Henry, Josiah, & Mommy).  She is starting to learn colors slowly.  Henry always likes a "green egg" when he eats them.  So Caroline has started requesting green eggs as well.  I used to think that colorful eggs were sort of gross to eat, but at this point I barely notice it anymore.

And in other food news...  Broccoli used to be a favorite for all three kids.  Now Josiah doesn't like it anymore, Henry will only eat the "fur," and Caroline devours it - we have to cut her off for fear of her diapers the next day.

And in other "green" news... Henry spent all of Monday pretending to be the Hulk.  He referred to himself in the third person all day.  "Hulk want lunch." "Hulk play with legos."  and his favorite, "Hulk Smash!"  The threats of taking away super heroes is real around here.

We should have a busy week ahead of packing up our house.  They kids can't wait to have a house with stairs.  I am hoping that they will learn to sleep in a little better at the new house.  This past week, all three of them (in a line) walk into our bedroom at 5:30/5:45 a.m.  This is very normal for Josiah, and not so much for Henry and Caroline.  I don't know what's going on, but it'll be nice to separate them again.  Josiah should finish up his kindergarten work this week as well.  We are counting down the days for our summer plans to begin!