Oh, Henry!

We have been trying to make it to our neighborhood playground more lately.  All the kids like the one swing that they have (one!), so we have worked on taking turns.  I have decided that I am no longer going to push the boys.  They just have to learn how to pump their legs.  Josiah has fought me on it in the past, but this week he seems to have finally gotten the pumping legs thing.

Unfortunately, Henry has not.  I push him until he has gotten pretty high, all the while telling him, "kick your legs out, pull them back, kick your legs, pull them back."  Then I tell him I'm going to stop pushing and it's up to him to keep pumping his legs.  This is the point at which our playground trips have been cut short.  He has followed up by telling me (with increasing volume), "You're the worst, Mommy.  You're the worst!  Push me!!!  PUSH me!!!"  But the thing is, I can see that he's actually making the swing move when he pumps his legs.  He just gets out of whack or forgets or does it too softly, which slows him down physically, but speeds up his anger.  He is not a kid who likes the "training process."  He is only happy when he has perfected the latest feat.  He doesn't like failure (or what he perceives to be such).

What? You want me to swing myself?  You are like the dirt on my shoulder. I brush you to the ground. The worst!

Henry has some of the best prayers though.  He is typically sincere, albeit not always.  There have been many prayers that have left me in silent laughter.  One evening this past week, he was praying.  He began by mentioning all the people he loved, he thanked God for Jesus dying on the cross for our sins.  He emphasized that He died for all of us, everybody.  He said he was happy He rose again three days later.  He followed that by counting to 30.  Then he listed off just how much he loved us.  He said, "I love Josiah 4,000. I love Mommy 5,000.  I love Caroline 6,000.  I love Daddy [what we all expected to be 7,000, but he said...] 7. And I love God 17.  Amen."  I started my silent laughter, but it was the type that makes the whole body shake even though it's quiet.  The problem was, I had both Josiah and Caroline in my lap so they were starting to violently bob up and down with my laughter.  Henry, for the most part, seemed oblivious as he was up on the bed with Todd.  I always mean to record his prayers.

We had our last day of school this past Friday.

Happy-he-finished-pre-K

They get four weeks off and then we start up again.  There is no reason to take the whole summer off and have them lose all their knowledge.  We ordered new curricula for the new school year which arrived this week.  It is not something I would ever have guessed, but when the boys saw their handwriting books, they were so excited.  We had to get in a few pages this week before our break.

Josiah had been reading short little books for most of the year.  When it came to chapter books, he just wanted me to read them to him.  Then, a week ago or so, he picked up a Rush Revere book and started reading it.  Since then he's read another chapter book completely and has started two others.  It's amazing!  We went around to all the bookstores this weekend to pick up all of their summer reading program registrations.  He is ready!  He even reads books in digital format:

He is still loving swim practice.  Unfortunately, I made these last few classes in the afternoon.  This proved not to be a good time for Henry and Caroline.  They are just a bit cranky during the class, not-so-cooperative while Josiah changes after class, and then this is what it looked like when we got home.  Late afternoon naps are never good.

The kids were also happy I finally went out and bought some produce.

I made Josiah cry, bawl really, because I told him that he cannot take anything to heaven.  In the end, it all burns up.  But it's because heaven is so wonderful that we don't need to take anything with us; this was meant to be a good thing.  But all I heard between sobs was, "My [stuffed] doggie.....is....going to.....burn?!"

Saturday.  7:30 a.m.  The kids wanted to paint.  They painted normal pictures, but then said they wanted to make thumb prints.  Thumb prints.



The boys have been working on their artwork (in a neater format).  Josiah has been wearing his new Astros hat nearly all the time, which prompted a few Mascot-themed drawings.


Then Henry decided to draw members of our family.



We were able to tell the kids about the meaning of Memorial Day as we remember all of the soldiers who died for our freedom.  Our local Chick-fil-a had a basket of army men.  The kids all took one to remember those who sacrificed their lives for us.  The real reason Daddy gets a three-day weekend!

Let summer vacation commence!
 

15 Push-Ups for Fruit Snacks

Josiah finished up his two-week intro swim class this week.  We got wise and started packing a backpack of activities.  Most days Henry and Caroline would color while Josiah swam.

The last day Josiah got a private lesson since the other boy in his class didn't show up.  We were able to watch him poolside.  Actual poolside, not observation room poolside.  Henry was all smiles the whole time and kept commenting on how fun it looked.  Josiah showed us his freestyle arms:

His backstroke kick:

He even went down the slide and swam to his instructor.  He swam the length of six arm strokes (my poor swimming speak) without coming up for air.  The next level focuses more on breath control and side breathing.  Thank goodness!  He loves swimming.  We signed him up for lessons until the end of May and we'll get him back into it after our trip east.

Josiah also participated in a fitness assessment.  There was a doctoral student studying whether there was a difference between homeschool and public school kids in terms of fitness level/health.  Josiah was excited to participate.  By percent body fat, he should have all the public school kids whipped!  He did his push-ups and got 15 reps.  On his results sheet they checked, "Normal."  He then was asked to complete sit-ups.  He got 0 reps.  His results sheet indicated, "Needs Improvement."  At the end, they gave him fruit snacks as a thank you for participating.  He was a happy camper.  Meanwhile, Henry, who was allowed to participate, chose not to.  That was until we got about 5 minutes from our home and he decided that he wanted to participate.  Too late buddy!  The study was going on for several days, so I asked him the next day if he wanted to do it.  "No," he said. "Can you just buy the fruit snacks?"

School has been going fairly well for Josiah lately.  Usually we have disagreements (daily) because he wants to do his history lesson first.  We do not do it first for many reasons.  However, ever since we have started his cursive handwriting lessons, he is very interested in doing that first.  We have been bonding over cursive.  It has given me the opportunity to praise him more than normal in school.  He really focuses well with the cursive and likes it.

Caroline has been playing with her favorite game while we do school.  The game itself is way too advanced for her, but she likes playing with all of the little people and animals in it.

That and she works on her artwork.  Lately, it has been a bit monochromatic.  She picks a colored marker, gets a sheet of paper, sits down and colors the entire sheet of paper one color.  Every inch of the sheet.

I have been working on getting some of the kids artwork up on the walls.  It is so nice to get pictures hung up.  It makes the house so much more homey.  My favorite picture that Josiah has ever done is finally framed and hung.  He did it when he was 5.  It is a man rowing a boat.  I just love it.  I don't think he even remembers doing it.

"Man Rowing"

Henry's artwork.

The boys have been riding their bikes in our small circle this past week.  Henry's riding seems to have improved dramatically since riding in the street.  The smoothness of the street has helped as the sidewalks here tend to be a bit uneven.  He's been going up and down the (inclined) curbs like it's nothing.

The boys had outgrown their old hats, and with the sun already beating down on us here, they needed some new ones.  Josiah originally picked out an Astros hat and was wearing it around the store while Henry picked his out.  Henry was drawn to the shiny hats (the girls hats that were blinged out), but finally found one he liked enough to get.  So as we were getting ready to go check out I noticed the hat Josiah was wearing cost $34.99.  So we quickly took that piece of gold off his head and had him pick out a new hat.  His criteria was a white "H."  Todd and my criteria was "less than $34.99."

Henry must be used to all my picture taking because the minute we left the store, he stood by a concrete barrier and asked for his picture to be taken in his new hat.  We compromised and had them stand off to the side near a tree for a prettier background.

The boys' week ended well.  Todd left them a note to quietly get dressed and wake him up this morning.  He took them out to breakfast before church.  He said that after the boys ate, they walked around the (empty) restaurant and straightened up all the chairs.  Henry had been wanting to go out to breakfast, so he was really happy with the surprise.

It is hard to believe that Josiah's school year is coming to an end.  Second grade all of a sudden sounds so old.  We are trying to finish up well this next week and a half.

Swimming Begins

Swim practice began on Monday.  Josiah has it five days a week for two weeks.  He loves every minute of it!  He was nervous for the first few minutes of the first class, but when he came out of the water, he was all smiles.  He loves swimming.  I've been amazed at what he has learned to do already: glide, swim with his head underwater (and he has started to move his arms in the likeness of the freestyle stroke), and he gets rings at the bottom of the pool.  There is only one other child in his class, so they both get a lot of focused attention from the instructor.  It has been a great experience for him.

Observing on the first day.

Caroline was disappointed to learn she wasn't having swim lessons as she wanted to hop in the pool with Josiah.  We watch his class from an observation room.  We can see him, but he can't see us.  I think he just sees a mirror like in the police interrogation rooms.  Henry seems to have no opinion one way or the other.  I was hoping that watching Josiah swim would spark more of an interest in him.  While he shows very little interest at the pool, he has been doing "riskier" things in the bathtub.  Just the other night, he called me in to show me he had put his ears under the water.

We tried to get some more water time in with friends from our Awana group who happen to live really close by.  We went to our neighborhood splash pad, but couldn't get the thing to work.  We just received a neighborhood newsletter that listed all the new improvements they had done to the splash pad so we were slightly miffed by the not working part.  Later, the lawn guys showed up and said it doesn't work on Wednesdays because they mow.  The kids still enjoyed a picnic together and several games of hide and seek.  Caroline has associated the splash pad with the word "picnic," so she has been asking to go back to the picnic for the rest of the week.

I have been a bit on edge at meal times.  Since Josiah watched the Food Network Kids' Baking Championship, he has felt the need to judge my meals.  He rates them on a scale of his making and tells me if I've done a good job or not.  Ironic, really, since his palate only has a taste for: pizza, spaghetti, samples at Costco, restaurant food, and dessert.  Of course, it's not like he has ever kept quiet about how he's felt about every meal he has eaten anyway.  
I want Josiah to help more in the kitchen.  I want him to help so that he can learn not just kitchen skills, but to broaden his tastes for different foods.  But, oh, it requires so much patience for our very, very persistent child!  He and I both made a fruit salad the other night.  He made one for our family, and I made one for our mom's night out (it was wonderful!).  He loves cutting things.  And he wanted to cut everything.  So, he did a great job quartering strawberries and halving grapes (good for math, too).  He also chopped up a nectarine, but then decided he liked peaches better.

We had a fun time at the library this week.  A local art group hosted a FROG (Fully Rely On God) event.  We really had no idea what it was, except that it was arts & crafts and it was free.  They had stations set up of different art projects: bead/necklace making, origami, painting, "how to draw," face painting, computer/digital art, and a tattoo station.  (Not sure how a press-on tattoo fit into the mix, but the kids liked it.)  The kids were told if they got all of their stations checked off, there would be a prize for them at the end.  Unknown prizes at the end are always a motivator!  So, for the first time ever our kids got their faces painted.  They have never wanted it done before, never expressed any interest whatsoever, nothing.  But they wanted that box checked off.  Caroline didn't even stop at one request.  She got a bow on her forehead and a crown on her cheek.

Henry chose a Batman mask (and insisted on several poses).


Josiah went with the theme and got a frog face.  On the drive home, he wanted to take pictures of himself...


And their prize at the end was a basket of pine cones of which they could pick one.  A very artsy prize indeed.  They spent a good bit of time Saturday morning painting their pine cones.  So now we have very beautiful and very large pine cones, and we're not totally sure where to put them just yet.

I do have to give a shout out to Todd, because after the kids' got their faces painted, I left that evening for my mom's night out with other CC moms.  That left Todd to scrub off all of the face paint.  Henry had expressed to me earlier that he wanted to keep his face paint on to show family members when we see them in June.  So, I know it wasn't easy to get the kids to wash it off.

We also surprised the kids with a celebratory lunch for finishing up their school year.  Although it's not technically over just yet, we celebrated early.  The boys even got an ice cream dessert after their lunch.  Henry is very excited to start kindergarten.  He keeps asking when we'll start it.


Caroline wanted a picture with the table decor.

Henry found a true friend in his Sunday school class.  He has mentioned his name to me several weeks in a row now.  I was so happy to hear he found a friend.  Then I found out today that they may have bonded over facial/head injuries.  Henry said this little boy came to class today and said he had staples in his head.  Why?  His brother pushed him into a mailbox.  So the whole drive home we talked about staples in the head and how that happens.

Before we left church, Henry asked to get a picture of him in the hand chair.  It was pretty perfect that the chairs were their favorite colors.  Green for Henry and purple for Caroline.


We have another week of swim coming up, which pretty much defines our time right now.  That and we're just trying to finish up our school year as the end of the month approaches.

Stronger Together

Henry has continued to work hard on his handwriting.  When he practices it, he whispers a mantra to himself, "Focus me. Focus me."  He says this the whole time he's writing his letters.  It must work, though, because his handwriting has been very neat.  We had to do all of our schoolwork at the dining room table this week, because the boys kicked me out of the school room on Monday and said I couldn't come back in it until Mother's Day.  They had made a sign on the window and used lots of stickers everywhere and made a giant mess in general.  What they didn't know, was that I could see the sign in the window when I mowed the backyard Monday evening.

I thought I was doing a helpful deed for Todd.  About half the time, I will mow the backyard while Todd does the front.  I enjoy mowing, plus the backyard is about as easy as can be.  At least it was until I mowed around one of our trees and noticed that the front end suddenly moved closer to the ground leaving a bald spot in its wake.  I checked out the front wheels to see what was the matter.  I merely touched the metal piece that changes the height of the wheels, and boom, it fell off.  It wasn't a fixable part.  The metal piece broke in half.  So, Todd got his backyard mowed and he got to buy a new mower.  He told me it was my mother's day present.  At least Henry had baked a cake that day so that made Todd's evening a little sweeter.


They used Christmas sprinkles this time....

We had an object lesson from Aesop's fables.  The story went that a man had kids that were fighting over everything, so he had them each find some sticks.  He bundled them together and had them try to break the bundle.  They couldn't break it.  Then he had them take one stick each and try to break it.  They broke it.  So the moral was that we are weak when we try to do things alone and are selfish by only thinking of ourselves.  Yet we are strong when we work together as a family and a team.  I got to tie it back to God, too, that when we stray from Him and try to do things on our own, then we're weak, but we are strong when we are with Him.
Unbreakable:


To breakable (Caroline succeeded first):

Caroline, not fully understanding the object lesson, went to work on her strength by trying to climb the doorjambs like the boys.

School on Friday lasted forever.  It all started with a traffic accident delay.  I had recently cleaned our back windows with my Norwex cloths.  The cloths really made them look amazing, so we kept the blinds up to enjoy the lovely streak-less windows.  Well, they were actually so clear looking that on Friday we had three birds fly into our windows.  The first happened at 7:15 a.m.  The poor bird just lay on its side on the ground next to the window.  The bird looked like a baby and I seriously thought it was a goner.  After about 10 minutes it hopped up onto its feet, but then just stood there for another 30 minutes.  I still thought it was a goner.  Josiah wanted to go get it, take it in the house, and nurse it back to health.  He had a plan in place to go dig up worms and get a water cup.  I had to tell him no less than 100 times to just take it easy and give it some time.  Clearly the bird was stunned.  So, after a long time of the bird just sitting there, I let him go dig for worms.  What harm could come from that?  Unfortunately, he couldn't find any, so he insisted on water.  So, I got a small water cup and we placed it near the bird.  It was enough to startle the bird and it flew briefly to a nearby branch.  After a while it must have gotten better because I haven't seen it since (and I have looked on the ground under the branch just in case).  After all the birds running into them, our windows ended up quite streaked with fingerprints and face prints from our bird-watching kids.

That day did end on a better note.  The boys had their Awana award ceremony in which they got their book awards (ribbons).  Henry got up on stage and did the hand motions to his song with the rest of his Cubbies.  Josiah, not so much.  Caroline was not as impressed with the event and had to be taken out twice.  She thought she could operate my phone's camera for the entire event and was not happy that I wanted to take pictures of the boys on stage.  She was also under the impression that since she was coming to Awana that it was finally her chance to be a Cubbie like Henry.

Todd gave me a Mother's Day gift (besides the lawnmower) Saturday morning.  He took the kids to the library's family story time.  I got 90 glorious minutes all to myself at home.  It is such a rarity to be alone in the house.  It was wonderful.

Later that day he and the boys washed my car.  It had been a few years since its last washing, so it was due.  The boys, of course, took the liberty to spray each other more than the cars, but they had a good time.  Henry sprayed Todd once in the chest, but quickly followed it up with, "I love you," so it was okay.

Caroline fell asleep on the way home from dinner Saturday night.  It was about 5:00 p.m.  Her no-naps tend to catch up with her.  So, about 11 1/2 hours later, at 4:29 a.m. Sunday morning, she woke up.  She managed to hang out in our bed until 5:22 a.m. when her belly got to growling.  I anticipated her waking up early, so I went to bed quite early myself.  We had a nice girl's morning before the rowdy boys joined us.

Sunday.  Mother's Day.  I finally got to go in the school room again to officially see the boys' sign.

Josiah said I could go shopping for twelve hours by myself.  It was a great idea on his part.  He also wanted to make me a pizza.  He wanted it to have: whole wheat wrap, grape jelly, grapes, and mozarella cheese on top.  Maybe not the best idea?  Unfortunately we never made it to the store to get those ingredients.  Hmmmm.

Our Mother's Day pictures. They had to be taken at two different trees. One that Josiah picked and one that Henry picked.


This week Josiah begins his swim lessons.  I feel like it's about 4 years later than I intended, but at least we are finally starting!