Fat Lips and Todd's Birthday

Josiah started his week off well.  At his Trail Life USA meeting, he earned his joining award.  It is a multicolored tree patch that attaches to his uniform.  He was supposed to do five things to earn this award - handshake, say the motto, say the oath, salute, and some other thing.  But wouldn't you know it, they just gave it to him.  I really wished they had made all the kids go through the steps.  For one, he worked on them a lot; practicing them so that he said the oath correctly and held his hand correctly.  And two, I think the kids would feel a sense of accomplishment if they had been made to do it rather than just handed the patch.  But they didn't ask me.  :)

Todd got to spend his birthday evening at Josiah's Trail Life meeting.  At least he could reminisce about all the good gifts he got while he was at the meeting.  Josiah had wrapped up Henry's Captain America and had given it to him.  Henry had wrapped up a sharpened pencil.  I cannot remember the reason Henry gave him a pencil, but whatever it was, Henry was all smiles and proud to give it to him.  Caroline and I got him two pajama shirts that didn't get delivered until 5 days after his birthday.  It was probably the most exciting birthday ever.


Todd does get credit for wearing his "Dad" badges to work.  The boys had each written on a small piece of paper, "Dad" that he was allowed to wear only on his birthday.  They were pretty proud to see him wearing them on his shirt.


Wednesday proved rough for facial injuries.  By the time Todd came home from work, all three kids had fat lips.  All accidental injuries.  Henry's had the best story attached.  He came downstairs wailing about his lip.  Josiah looked at it and acted like it was horrible, which did not help matters.  Henry freaked out even more because there was a small line of blood at his gumline.  He was not willing to do any of my suggestions, so we just sat and read until he calmed down.  Finally I asked him what happened.  Well, he was walking around with his eyes shut and walked into the door.  He talked funny all day due to the injury and slurped his spit because apparently the swollen lip didn't allow him to swallow properly.  It started off mildly annoying and by the time Todd got home I was going crazy with the slurping.  "YOU ARE FINE!!!  JUST SWALLOW YOUR SPIT!!!"

We practiced bike riding again this weekend.  Josiah started off very wobbly.  He was riding on his own, but was super wobbly.  I don't even know how he managed to stay upright for some of the wobbles, but he did.  He got better and better the more he rode, until the end.  I challenged him to ride all the way to Todd who was swinging Henry and Caroline at the playground.  Josiah met my challenge, started to ride, and crashed.  Try again.  He started to ride and crashed again, this time the handlebar rammed into his side.  He indicated that it was quite painful and he would not be getting back on his bike.  He lifted up his shirt and he wasn't kidding - it looked quite painful.  Then he proceeded to walk to Todd and said, "Look what Mommy did to me."  Uhhhhhh.  I don't think so.  So I reminded him that he fell off his bike and the handlebar injured him.  Not mommy.  I don't need him going to church and telling his teachers what Mommy did to him and welcome CPS at my door Monday morning.

Caroline let us in on another word in her ever expanding vocabulary.  One evening, I opened a new box of soy milk for her and upon receiving her cup, she took one sip and said, "Disgusting."  She has never said anything remotely like that with regards to her soy milk so I took note.  I looked at the date on the package, smelled it, and it all seemed okay.  I thought maybe it was a fluke.  The next morning I gave her some more.  She took a sip and said, "Disgusting."  I was worried that somehow the container had a small hole in it and it was moldy or something.  Smelling it, it smelled sweet, kind of syrupy.  I read the whole front of the box again.  And there it was, "Vanilla."  She had been given Vanilla soymilk.  She was used to "unsweetened."  Todd thought it was hilarious that she had clearly inherited my bland tastebuds.

In school this week, we learned about ziggurats and Hammurabi's Code.  To keep it interesting, we made our own ziggurat out of legos.  We had a picture to go by and I was in charge of the majority of the construction while the boys were in charge of finding the correct pieces.  I kid you not, it took about an hour to build.  And after it was finished I took a picture.  Literally, 30 seconds after the picture was taken, Josiah had taken it apart to get the lego pieces he had hidden in the bottom layer.  Then he had the audacity to ask me to "fix it" back to how it was.  As I was kind of proud of the original work, I tried to fix it back.  Once again it was completed, and once again it was taken apart.  I walked away.

The following day we made the Cockrell Code in the same spirit as the Hammurabi Code.  Then the boys had it as their mission to break everything we had come up with as part of our code.

Todd was given a day off for his birthday, so he took it on Friday this year giving himself a long weekend.  We went to Pappasito's for lunch to celebrate.  They have very good Tex-Mex food--the best homemade tortillas.  Todd and I were stuffed by lunch's end, so the boys got to share his free birthday dessert.  It was a double brownie with ice cream on top and some chocolate mole sauce.  Josiah made himself sick eating it, but I'm sure it was all worth it.        

Finally, Josiah saw his art show on TV again.  The man used pastels this time, which of course, Josiah was upset that we didn't have a box of pastels just hanging around.  He did the best he could with colored pencils.  I was impressed!  Still life - an orange, an apple, and a banana.  I secretly bought him some pastels today so he'll have them for next time.

And Henry worked on his strength training this week with the new exercise: sibling lift.