Sitting Issues

We learned about vertebrates and invertebrates in CC this week.  To go along with that, we had the "Snake Guy" come and speak to our group.  He was pretty much what I pictured a typical snake guy to be.  Every time he took a snake out of his bag, he'd hold  it up close to his face and talk to it in baby talk before introducing it to us.  He clearly loved his snakes and said he had over 80 at home.

Most of the kids got in line to have him put a snake around their neck.  Snake Guy did this with three different kinds of snakes.  By the time they got to the third snake, Snake Guy said aloud, "When I visit public schools their lines are so straight I can't even tell how many kids are left in line."  To which one of our CC kids piped up, "We aren't public school kids."  Interestingly, Snake Guy homeschooled his kids as well.  My kids were not interested in standing in line to wear a snake, but I did get them  to at least touch it.


And he was educational.  He talked about venomous snakes, what to do if bit, to NEVER touch a snake.  Ever. I still had his little snake facts rolling around in my brain the next day.  Josiah and Henry were playing in the backyard, when all of a sudden they ran inside saying they found a bee's nest.  I looked outside and saw a couple of wasps swarming around the patio door.  So, it was good they ran.  Not five minutes later, Josiah starts just crying and whimpering about his finger hurting and his underarm hurting.  Of course, I look for snake bites or wasp stings.  Nothing.  It was sort of scary for about 15 minutes because he really seemed to be in pain.  We sat on my bed and turned on Curious George and miraculously, he recovered within two minutes of the show coming on.

That was probably the last time we went outside to play this week.  Todd heard on a local radio station here, "There is not a single mosquito out there anymore.....They are all married and have kids."  He wasn't kidding.  That day the boys came running inside, Henry had a leg covered in mosquito bites.  He had three huge ones on his head as well.  Mosquitoes must like meaty flesh, because Josiah didn't have any bites.

Fortunately for Henry he finally got some pants that fit him, so he could keep those legs covered up.  The poor boy could only fit into warm-up pants and other pants with generous elastic waists.  I finally ordered him some "husky" pants and they fit him sooooo well.  When he put them on and he had room in the waist, it felt like I had just lost 20 pounds and fit into a smaller pair of jeans.  I was so excited for him.  I think he was happy about it, too, and he wore them to Awana.  On the way home, he mentioned his favorite part of Awana.  Snack time and puppets.  My husky boy.  

Sweet, kind, compassionate, husky Henry has also been driving us bonkers with his "chair" behavior.  He will NOT sit in a chair, on his bum, and stay seated throughout a meal.  He has fallen out of his chair or stool so many times this week that I finally banned him from all chairs.  I banished him to the floor, but he asked to sit on the step stool, so he was granted his wish.  Of course, he thought this was a cool chair and wasn't the least bit phased that this was "punishment."

Henry is eating a green egg because yellow eggs are so boring.

We spent much of Saturday morning at the Children's Museum.  Since it is October, they had it all decked out with Halloween decorations.  They even gave the kids trick-or-treat bags and had candy stations all throughout the museum.  Josiah was very much into this.  The boys had a lot of fun.  Caroline unfortunately woke up at 5:30 a.m. that morning and it was glaringly obvious for much of our time at the museum.  She screamed and shrieked and kicked her legs at everything that caused her displeasure.  It was the kind of loud shrieking to where everybody turned around to make sure nobody was massively injured.  I kept having to take her to a corner to calmly explain to her that she was not allowed to sit in the ambulance driver's seat indefinitely.  There were 500 other kids there that wanted a turn as well.  She shrieked about not being able to climb the gigantic 3-story net thing the boys were in (you had to be five years old to do it), she shrieked when we got her off the seat in which she pulled herself up using a rope pulley.  It was intense to say the least.  When we were finally getting ready to go, Josiah joined in the fun and threw a tantrum of his own, throwing himself on the floor.  It brought back a bunch of memories of how I used to hate bringing him anywhere when he was younger because he was so difficult when it was time to leave.  There were many drives home with both of us in tears because of his disdain for leaving anywhere and everywhere.

Dr. Josiah

Speedy Caroline

The giant three-story climbing thing.

The best part of the museum was the outside area.  It seemed that everybody was much calmer in the open air.  They have a huge water contraption thing where they could play with locks and boats and "streams," make waves, lots of water activities.  Each child had gotten the front of their shirts soaking wet.  Then Henry, wanting his boat to pass Caroline's, decided to pick up his boat and carry it over Caroline completely soaking her hair and the back of her shirt.  He didn't want to just give it a push to pass her while in the water.  We did not last much longer after we were done outside.  We're hoping they remember the fun of these trips.  We must only remember the fun parts as well, because we keep going back.

We're supposed to be going to a farm this coming week with our CC group, so I'm a bit nervous (terrified) that Caroline will pull the shrieking/kicking of legs/screaming/etc. thing there.  We're praying she sleeps a LOT the night before.