Kindergarten Completed

Monday night, we went to bed with a big storm outside.  The lightning was constant and the thunder was the loudest I've ever heard.  It felt like the house was shaking with the booms.  Amazingly the kids slept through it all.  The next morning all of Houston seemed to be flooded.  We were very blessed that our neighborhood seemed fine.  Todd saw the roads he needed to take to get to work on the news, saw that they were clear, and so decided to venture in.  He said the highway had very few cars that were moving on it.  He passed several abandoned cars.  He made it to work and found an empty parking lot.  15 minutes into his workday, he received a text and email that his school wouldn't open until noon that day.  He stayed and stuck it out until 3pm when the 85 degree temperature inside was too much (plus the threat for more rain and flooding).  On Tuesday, Todd was looking at the weather in our area and it had an emergency alert for potential flooding until Saturday!  Not just a few hours, but 4 days.  It is so sad that many have lost their life to the flooding.   

We have been without a dishwasher for a month now.  We have sort of grown used to it, but I will be very happy to be in a house with a working dishwasher again.  I do not do all the dishes at once, they are done in spurts sporadically throughout the day.  This is because of my helper.  Whenever she sees me with the kitchen faucet on, she runs to get the step stool while saying, "I help you. I help you."  She scoots right beside me, climbs up and immediately goes for a cup (plastic, thank goodness).  Then she says, "Bubbles." so I squeeze some bubbles into her cup.  She then fills the cup with water from the running faucet, proceeds to dump it, and then says, "Bubbles." again.  Hit repeat 25x (or forever if I let her.)  When I dare try to rinse my own dish using the faucet, she pushes my arm with her arm and says, "My turn."  And this is why each dishwashing session ends a little quicker than desired.  When said dishwashing session ends, she turns to clean the countertops.  She gets a big kitchen towel, and moves it back and forth on the countertop.  If the crumbs should hit the floor, that's a win because the countertop now looks clean.  She also picks up all items on the countertop and says, "What's this?"  Sometimes in addition to towels, she'll use the remaining number of napkins in their holder one at a time to clean the same countertop.  Sometimes, Henry tries to help with the dishes as well, but Caroline isn't too keen on sharing the step stool with him and she is quite vocal (and physical) about it.  

cleaning

We did have an incident this week which made me glad that she sticks up for herself.  At the library, Caroline always likes to play at the lego table.  It is not a very big table, square, so it fits four kids.  She went to an empty side and started playing.  A bigger boy, who had been on one side, moved next to her and tried to take the legos in front of her.  She just sort of looked at him and kept trying to play.  But then he used the side of his body to try to push her out of the way.  I was watching from a couple of feet away to see what she would do before intervening if necessary.  She looked at him, pushed him right back with her body, and he went back to his side of the table.  :)

Watch out Lynda Carter

Caroline has been quite difficult with her sleeping for weeks now.  At night, she'll get out of bed, put on this pathetic looking face, cock her head to the right so that it is resting on her shoulder, and say, "belly hurt." Or she'll say, "Not feel well."  We have serious doubts about the validity of the statements, since she is copying Josiah verbatim (in broken-English-toddler-speak).  The reason we doubt them is because she always asks for applesauce, or "sauce" as she likes to call it.  At the point she's gone to bed, she's probably already had at least two packets of her beloved squeeze applesauce that day, so the answer is always "no, go back to bed."  More pathetic face.  More cocking of the head to the right.  She's bound to give up on this method soon, since I'm not sure we have ever given into it.  Not only that but she's been waking up anywhere from 4:50 a.m. to 5:30 a.m.  With all three kids sharing a room here, we can't just send her back without waking everyone up.  That'll be the first thing we do at the new house - send her back to bed in her own room.  :)  

We made a cake this week, because we're trying to use up all our food before we move, and cake seemed like a good thing to use up.  The idea was to top it with Cool Whip and then decorate it with strawberries and blueberries.  I had the idea to do the American flag because of Memorial Day.  But the idea of Captain America's shield won out.  The boys did not want to help me decorate it, so upon eating it for dessert one night, Henry sees it and says it would have been better if we had done the Hulk.  Josiah doesn't like Cool Whip (or even the whip cream that sprays out).  Some days you just can't win around here.  Todd and I thought it was delicious.  So that Caroline is not always left out of desserts, Todd found her allergen-free frozen blueberry muffin tops.  She has never been a big fan of baked goods the few times she's had them so I was not expecting her reaction of pure delight.  She was eating it before Todd got home from work (she ate early that night) and I told her to tell Daddy that she liked it when he got home.   The second he walks through the door, she says, "Daddy! Daddy!  Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Like.  Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  You got. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Bread."  Then she kept asking for "more bread."  

Josiah has been drawing and tracing pictures from the Mo Willems books all week.  He is trying to draw all the pictures from several books, so the stack of pictures is quite large.  On Friday, he got the entrepreneurial spirit about him and decided to sell his pictures.  To Todd and I.  The going rate for me was 15 cents a picture.  He told me that Daddy would be charged more because he had more money than I do.  Finally, when Todd got home that evening, we both managed to pay five cents per picture because he was having a half price sale.  (We haven't learned fractions yet.)  We were told the next day the pictures would cost $20 each, so really it was a steal.  He now has 55 cents to his name, plus the pennies Henry earned and didn't feel like keeping.  Caroline "earned" 2 cents because she insisted on having two coins.  She must have two of everything - especially cookies.  I did like that Josiah said he wanted to save up his money to buy a new lego kit.  We are all about him saving his money to buy something he really wants.  We've had a hard time trying to figure out ways for him to earn money, so I appreciated his art sale.

drawing...

...and selling

Saturday was spent celebrating Josiah's completion of kindergarten.  He was very excited to learn he was now a first grader.  He chose Sweet Tomatoes to celebrate, which is a favorite for all of us.  However, we weren't sure we were going to make it to a table to actually eat.  Once you walk through the door, you make your salad from a long buffet line before paying.  Todd had both boys plates on his tray at the boys' request.  They fussed and whined about half the things Todd put on their plates.  Henry even tried to remove certain items by pushing them off the plate onto the floor.  We were ready to hang it up and leave before we even got to a table.  We attempt to use it as an opportunity to try different vegetables that they don't normally get at home.  Yet, after all their fussing, they liked most of what they got.  They'll eat butternut squash, dried beets, quinoa salad, celery, and other vegetables if they are cut up in a fancy way (julienned?) and at a restaurant.  Caroline was eating all of my shredded carrots and sunflower seeds.  She even ate an entire sweet potato that I put on my plate to share with her.  Josiah made himself sick in the end.  His poor belly was aching after the salad, soup, bread, muffins, and ice cream sundae.

Rising 1st Grader!  Last Kindergarten activity...sorting cups by weight.

They wanted to see what was in the cups and discovered one cup had marshmallows.  

This is an exciting week coming up for us.  In the span of two days, we'll pick Aunt Claire up from the airport, close on a house, and move all our belongings into it.  Clearly we have the right crew to move our house:

The best part is Henry's Batman symbol is covering up his other label, "Librarian."  Don't mess with his library!

Before Caroline got WW, Henry gave it to Todd.

Henry literally taped this mask to his head.