Dentists, Fasces, and Bribery

The boys finally made it to the dentist.  Henry had never been, unless you count the dentist we saw when he lost his teeth, but that was really just an obscene medical bill, not a dental "check-up."  Fortunately, Josiah went first and we all got to watch him be brave.  Henry kept getting close to Josiah's mouth, watching, and asking, "Does it hurt?"  Josiah answered in the negative in the best way he could with his mouth open and the hygienist's tools inside of it.  Five seconds later, "Does it hurt?"  Thank goodness, Josiah always told him it didn't hurt.  Henry got up there (reluctantly) and got his teeth checked out.  He did really well and we discovered that he already had two of his 6-year old molars coming in.  The same molars that have cavities in them in Josiah's mouth.  (Although, we were told this wasn't our fault - cavities in these particular molars.)  We actually take care of their teeth pretty well - floss daily and use a fluoride treatment, so it's hard to not feel a little defensive when they get cavities.  This particular dentist had a treasure box for the kids to pick out a small trinket after their appointment.  I think they'll be more than happy to go back in six months (except Josiah who has to get those cavities filled next month).

Henry is quite the comedian of the household.  He has that special character trait that brings laughter to others.  His joke du jour is:
Knock, Knock
Who's there?
Interrupting Cow.
Interrupt--
MOOOOOO!

Sometimes he changes it up:
Knock, Knock
Who's there?
Interrupting Gorilla.
Interrupt--
OooooOooooOooo (or whatever sound a gorilla makes)

There's Interrupting Truck, Interrupting House, and the not-so-surprising thing is, they're all hilarious.

Caroline has her own line of jokes that often contain the word, "poop."  She knows her audience.  At dinner one night, while listing the days of the week, she said, "Saturday, Poopday."  The boys couldn't contain their laughter.  It is one funny word...

No one can convince us that boys and girls are just alike.  Case in point:
Caroline had an accident and wet her pants.  She did this upstairs while I was downstairs.  I was only privy to this information because she pulled her entire dresser drawer out on top of her feet/legs, was stuck, and called out for help.  Upon entering her room and seeing her dresser drawer on her very naked bottom half I asked her what was going on.  She mentioned she peed in her pants.  So, after putting the drawer back in place (she was surprisingly unscathed by it), I went to the bathroom to clean up her mess.  I went to both bathrooms and saw no evidence of an accident, so I cautiously asked her where she made the mess.  "In the boys bathroom," she said.  I inquired further and she said she cleaned up the mess.  I asked where her wet clothes were and she had already put them in the laundry hamper.  So, our two year old daughter had an accident, completely cleaned it up, put her clothes away, and was getting new clothes out.  She did this all on her own.  And yet, just the day before, I had to get on Henry for the umpteenth time for peeing all over the toilet seat, which I happened to notice that particular day because Caroline was sitting on the grossly wet seat and needed help in the bathroom.  I don't know how he does it sometimes.  It's like he temporarily loses his sense of vision when he uses the bathroom and just aims where he thinks the toilet ought to be.

Hands off ladies, Josiah informed me after Awana that he now had two girlfriends.  They are the two ladies that work the check-in desk for his class.  One is definitely grandma-age.  The other is closer to my age.  This is not the first time he's gone for much older ladies.

For school we have finally moved on from Ancient Greece (can I get an "Amen.") into Ancient Rome.  We made a Roman fasces one day.  The kids all had fun stripping the leaves off the branches and tying them in a bundle.  They had a hard time understanding that a fasces was an emblem of official power, not an actual ax to use.

We made a Roman aqueduct out of legos as well.  It is amazing all the different resources we use for homeschooling, but we love us some You Tube for things like this.  There was a short video from the History Channel that took us on a virtual ride down a Roman aqueduct.  So cool.

All the kids participated in Henry's school assignment of stringing a Cheerio's necklace.

Josiah got a taste of his own medicine when he tried to teach Caroline after his lessons were done for the day.  And I quote, "Caroline is the worst student ever!  She keeps playing around when I'm trying to teach her and she keeps erasing everything off the board."  Karma.  It'll bite ya.

Before parenthood, I had parenthood all figured out.  I knew that I would never, ever feed my children fast food, I would never use bribery as a form of behavior modification, I knew they would be respectful and kind because that's what we would model in our house, on and on and on.  Such ignorance.  Henry has always been difficult when we drop him off at church.  Every church, every Sunday.  The main complaints have been that it is too long and that he just doesn't want to go.  So I came up with a reward system to where he could earn treats if he went into his classroom without any trouble.  Pretty much glorified bribery.  But you know what?  It worked for the most part today.  He went in, reluctantly, but he still went in.  He didn't flop down in the hallway before we reached his room, he didn't cry, he didn't hold onto my arm or leg so that I couldn't leave.  I did ask his teacher afterwards how he did and it sounded like he didn't participate in anything they did either, but he was present.  Hopefully he'll participate more as time goes on.  And you better believe that after church (and lunch) we went to Starbucks and got him a cake pop.  Now he has to have two weeks in a row of good drop-offs to earn his ice cream from Costco.

We have a busy week ahead.  The boys begin a new P.E. class this week, so we are looking forward to that!  Plus I have a mom's night out with ladies from our CC group.  Woo-hoo.  :)