At, An, Am, & Ad

We started our week out with a play.  The play was done by InterActive Theater which meant that the audience interacted with, and some got on stage with the actors to help out.  We saw Anansi the Spider which were stories from the Ashanti people of Ghana.  We had read quite a few Anansi books from the library last semester, so this went right along with our studies.  Josiah and Henry sat on the front row and had a great time - laughing a lot and taking in the whole production.  Caroline, meanwhile, was not sure how to take it.  The actor who played Anansi the spider was very expressive and I don't think she knew how to take it at first.  I kept telling her it was funny and encouraged her to laugh, but after about five minutes she said, "I want to go home."  She proceeded to say this over and over again, and well, that wasn't going to happen.  So, she took a bathroom break (false alarm) and then she started to enjoy the play more when the hippo and elephant appeared.

Anansi the Spider

The play must have had quite the impact on her, though, because the entire drive home she said, "Remember that guy?"  Yes, I remember. (Who?  The spider? The elephant?  She never did say.)  Sixty seconds later, "Mommy?  Remember that guy?"  Yes, I remember.

Even though that was a very long day, Henry still found the energy to attend his first Trail Life meeting with Josiah.  He was aware that they had a snack time during the meeting, so he was very eager to join.  After the meeting, when they got home, he excitedly told me that he had a great time and that he got a snack.  A little later in the week, Henry started to express sadness that he was going to have to be a Spark at Awana next year.  Sparks don't get a snack.  This kid loves his snack times.

Henry also had a major week in that he has started to learn to read.  He sounded out and read his first four words: at, am, an, & ad.  This is a picture of his excitement.

After school that day, he ran up to Josiah and said, "I read four words!"  He was so excited.  I have a feeling he may be a quick student with regards to reading.  He is constantly asking us about words, what they say, where we are on the pages when we are reading.  He is always trying to figure out words and read.  It is neat to watch him.

Caroline had some rough times this week.  She was playing on one of our barstools and it ended up tipping over and landing on her foot.  It did not look good.  She had a bruise line across the top of her foot and her middle toe appeared to be swollen.  I sat her down and wrapped an ice pack on her foot.  Ten minutes into her icing, she had to take a bathroom break. She kept crying that it hurt and wouldn't bear any of her weight on it, which just made my concerns grow stronger.  I kept her on ice throughout dinner, and then after dinner, she just hopped up off her chair.  I asked her if she was okay and she just walked around and said, "It's all better."  Kids!  It is still bruised now, several days later, but the swelling went down that first evening.

First she worried us.  Then she tortured us.  We have two Lego buckets.  She dumped out both of them.  It was a lot of Legos.  A whole lot.  I had the brilliant idea to have her pick them all up to learn her lesson of never dumping them again.  I gathered them all up and put them in a nice pile next to the actual bucket.  It took us hours and hours to get her to pick them all up.  She would just sit there and cry next to her pile.  She would pick up one or two at a time.  She would stall and delay.  It was so mentally exhausting.  The boys and I cleaned up the entire rest of the playroom, vacuumed other rooms, a whole host of things.  She finally, finally finished.  I really do hope she never dumps it again.  I don't think I could handle it.  (And, yes, the boys do dump the buckets sometimes when searching for things, but we always pick them up.  Caroline dumped them for not good reason except to watch them exit their containers.)

This weekend we participated in some clean-up.  Henry helped Todd clean up our yard.  Henry's a good yard helper, he picks up handfuls of leaves like a champ.

Then on Sunday, we participated in an outreach project with our church.  There is no church service once a year on this particular Sunday.  The entire church, through their Sunday school class groups, participated in some sort of outreach effort.  Our class helped out a fellow church with a piece of property they purchased to start a new church there.  We picked up branches, raked leaves, trimmed bushes, mulched flowerbeds.  Todd put in a new mailbox post.  Many worked inside ripping up carpet and putting in new light fixtures and ceiling fans.  It was a fun time.  The boys loved the giant mulch pile.  The boys were not always within our sight throughout the morning, so it was only later that Josiah informed me he had gone inside three different times for snacks.  He didn't get just one item at a time either.  Henry's not as bold just yet, (plus the countertop was too high for him to see everything anyway.)

Our group. Josiah with the small, red wheelbarrow.  

A favorite item of play.

The kids on the mulch pile.

It is now very late and I have to get some wrapping done for tomorrow.  One very special little girl will greet me early, I imagine, as her new three-year-old self.