Quality of Life

In school I am always trying to tell the boys to do their best.  We have the Scripture verse hung on the wall, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for man."  (Col 3:23) It's the expectation that we've set.  And yet, this week, one of Josiah's assignments was to write a declarative sentence (statement), an interrogative sentence (question), and an exclamatory sentence (sudden feeling).  He wrote, "Maybe.  How?  Wow!"  Did you work at that with all your heart, there, buddy?

Josiah has been complaining that he hasn't been able to breathe well for probably a few months.  It was the type of thing that we weren't sure really needed medical attention, because he could breathe just fine through his mouth.  It was his nose he was having issues with, but he didn't want to compensate by being a mouth-breather.  One morning this week, Josiah woke up, came downstairs, did his best to breathe through his nose, and commented, "At the rate I'm breathing, it's hard for me to keep my quality of life."  So, we made the trek to the doctor where his lungs turned out to be perfect, his oxygen levels were 98, and he physically checked out just fine.  The doctor suggested a nasal spray and said it may help him or it may just have a placebo effect.  The next morning, we gave him the nasal spray and literally three seconds later he said he felt better.  He stopped his very intense, very exaggerated nose inhaling, too.  And not to say that he was making it all up.  The doctor said he probably really did feel like he couldn't breathe well.  I'm just glad the Flonase is working, whether it be mentally, physically, or both.

At karate this week, Josiah was very sweet with a friend's little girl.  She's two and she listened intently as Josiah explained who all the Ninja Turtles were, their weaponry, and their role in the Turtle Team.  This little girl has three older brothers, so she may have some practice in the listening department, but the two of them played really well while Caroline was in her class.  Josiah is consistently good with little ones.


And speaking of Caroline's karate class, she came out with a red belt.  Again, I missed the belt ceremony.  (I had to take pictures of my son on the floor being sweet on the little lady.)  Caroline said, "I got red, like Ezra!" (her karate and CC buddy).

In an effort to bring attention to the number of Legos on the boys' bedroom floor, Todd played a game with them last night.  He had each child begin at the door, and then they had to get to the bed either by walking backwards, blindfolded, or looking up at the ceiling.  Obviously, our point was to have them walk on the Legos which would prove so painful that they would want to clean them all up right away.  The reaction we got was, "Oh, can I go again?!!"  "I didn't get to go backwards.  I want to go backwards."  And of course they all denied it hurting their feet.  Parent fail.

Henry was sweet walking into church today.  He often puts his arm around Josiah this way when they walk together.  And I think the boys have worn these two shirts nearly every Sunday lately.  Usually they both wear red or they both wear white, so they went out on a limb today by mixing it up.  

  

And that was our week.  Next week is much busier with field trips, having friends over, and Todd's birthday.  

Mud Baths

Henry and I began our Monday morning completing a 1000 piece puzzle.  He is my puzzle buddy and he is very much an equal partner.  We had a lot of fun doing it over the previous week.  I was all ready to go get another big puzzle when Henry said, "That was too much.  I don't want to do another 1000 piece one again."  Oh...I was a bit sad on the inside.  We'll have to stick to our Dollar Store puzzles then.

The boys had math tests again this week.  Henry aced his.  Josiah missed the "Place this story in order." problem.  I sort of felt bad for him because the story sentences were about washing a dress and ironing it.  He thought you ironed a dress and then washed and dried it.  The only thing he sees me iron anymore are Awana patches on their uniforms.  Tough break.

CC went well again this week.  It was an agonizing decision last year to determine whether we should stay with the group that we were with last year or go back to our old original group.  And yet, here we are at week 2 and it is so obvious that our old original group was the way to go.  The boys are really happy to be back with friends.  They interact with all the kids really well.  Caroline is still adjusting because she's in a classroom now, but that'd be the case in both groups.  I did get the opportunity to speak with Josiah's tutor after lunch.  I asked how he was doing in class and if he was behaving himself.  She told me that he is doing well and that, yes, he does talk a lot, but he will also take direction and stop when she asks him to, so it's not problematic. How we got such talkative kids is beyond us!

After we got home from CC, the kids wanted to run in the sprinkler.  They were out back for quite a while with it.  After Caroline came in, I was busy getting her in the tub.  Once she was all settled in, I looked back out and this is what I saw:

That would be Henry painting mud on Josiah.  It didn't get too crazy, so I didn't interrupt their spa treatments.  I will note, however, that even after the boys came in and showered,  Henry still came out with mud all over the side of his face.  Did you miss your face in the bath, son?

One of our friends from karate mentioned that she had talked to her 8-year old son about girls the other day (he brought them up kind of a talk).  I thought it would be years before we had the same sort of conversation...and then Wednesday arrived.  We started back at our church activities and on the drive home, Josiah mentioned that a girl named "G-" was in his class.  Then he proceeded to say, "I've admired her for a long time.  She's read all the Ramona books.  I love her."  Okay.  And there we are.  I guess we've entered a new phase.

Awana began this week and we were all excited about it.  When it came time to drop the kids off in their particular classes, we decided to drop off Josiah first.  He kept telling me in a hushed voice, "Let's drop Henry off first, then Caroline, then me."  He was constantly reiterating that he wanted to be dropped off last, but since I was working in Henry's room, it didn't make sense.  Then when we dropped him off (first, to his horror), I saw his face and he was absolutely petrified.  I seriously don't think I've ever seen him so scared before.  He's moved up a level in Awana, so he's in T 'n T (Truth in Training) which has 3rd-6th graders in it.  In the room, I tried to point out all the boys he knew from Sparks, as well as his Sparks leader who moved up with the boys.  But Josiah just looked up at me, wide-eyed, and said, "I need you to stay with me."  I felt so horrible for leaving him, although I knew he'd have a good time.  He's never really shown fear going into a classroom before.  He's typically our gung-ho kind of a kid.  At the end of the night, he was all smiles and said he had the best time he's ever had at Awana.

And Henry and I finally got our Chick-fil-a time this weekend.  He ate a full meal and then an ice cream (we had a lot of coupons to use).  In these outings with the kids I have tried to be mindful to not rush them.  So, it was funny to watch Henry savor every lick of his ice cream.  We sat and ate for almost an hour.  We witnessed two lunch rushes come and go, but we were still going strong with our leisurely meal.


Caroline came home from church today and promptly went upstairs after lunch and put herself down for a nap.  She is currently up with me commenting on the lack of pictures of her in the blog this week.  So, we remedied that.  She's a beauty.

Coffee & Chick-fil-a

Monday morning the boys wanted to try coffee.  We have these two little unused espresso cups that I broke out for them.  In these little cups they had a tiny bit of coffee, a splash of half and half, and a sugar cube each.  They were really excited to try it.  Henry, our broader palate child, very gingerly sipped his coffee and said, "Ugh! That tastes like burnt potatoes."  Josiah, sipped his and asked how I could possibly drink it every day.  Todd agreed.  They just don't know what they're missing.  If I had had my French Vanilla creamer, they would have loved it and we'd be in trouble, but alas they'll stick to good ol' milk and water.



Tuesday the library reopened.  I was so happy to be able to get all the library books out of our house.  We had held onto them for much longer than we usually do.  We returned 91 books, 7 movies, and 1 book on tape!  We tend to go to the library at least once a week because we put so many books on hold from other libraries that we're always having some to pick up.  Each time we go there, the kids always want to get more so we have an ever-rotating pile of books.  It's usually great because they'll all read a lot when we get new books, but with the library closed last week we couldn't rotate out!  While some might keep track of their bank statements online, I log into my library account several times a week to stay on top of it.  The boys have been reading a new-to-them series called, "I Survived!"  They have events like, I Survived the San Francisco Earthquake, 1906, or The Bombing of Pearl Harbor, 1941, or Hurricane Katrina, 2005.  Well, Josiah read I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011.  He excitedly came up to me right after he finished it and exclaimed, "He survived!"  Well, how about that?  They'd have to change the series title if he didn't....  But they are neat books and they have real pictures in them whenever possible.  I'm all about reading non-fiction, so it makes me happy.  :)

This weekend I got to take Caroline and Josiah out individually.  Last month we missed out on our Chick-fil-a monthly coupon because they were all closed for the last week of the month (and we tend to not use the coupons until the last minute).  So, this month I was determined to get those coupons in!  Instead of having a chaotic lunch with all three kids to use all the coupons, this weekend I took Caroline out for breakfast to enjoy some hash browns and later Josiah and I hit it up for some lunch fries.  With Caroline, we also stopped at the library (see trip #2 this week!) and I let her have some time to play with the dollhouse there.  Then with Josiah, we went to Sam's Club and I let him browse through all the books at his leisure.  This may not seem like a big deal to most, but I am an in-and-out shopper.  I don't browse, I just like to get what I need and leave.


While Henry and I didn't get our Chick-fil-a time this weekend, he did get a few selfies of himself while we waited on Josiah to get his haircut.  He's all about kissy lips right now.


He also spent some time squeezing himself into the toddler car.  (A wonderful hand-me-down from their cousins.)  Every time I think we should sell this at a yard sale, the kids break it out and play with it again even though they are all way too large for it.
And that was our week.  Uneventful, which we'll take.

Where's the Street View?

Last Sunday, we were in the middle of Harvey.  But Sunday wasn't necessarily a sad day in our neighborhood.  There were people walking through the streets checking out the high water.  The kids all went out to see it.  While the news showed just utter chaos in Houston and Fort Bend County (which is us) with the flooding and rescues, it wasn't that way right here.  Until Sunday evening when the water started to rise.   It got a few feet past the trees in our front yard, creeping up closer and closer to the house.  We would flush the toilets and our kitchen sink would gurgle every time. We watched the windows until 2 a.m. and were up at 4 a.m. to check, and again and 5 a.m.  We were incredibly grateful and blessed that the water never reached the house, but at the same time, Monday was much more somber.  We had a relentless rain all day long.  It never stopped for even a moment's break.  There was no one walking around the neighborhood anymore.  There were no cars driving.  We had a National Guard truck drive down our road, but we found out a soldier was just dropping his mom off at her house.  There was the hum of air boats all day long.  The kids saw a boat in the neighborhood, but I always missed it.  No one was sleeping well anymore.  Even the kids had dark circles under their eyes.  Henry couldn't sleep because he was worried about a tornado.  He would just cry when the tornado warnings would blare from our phones.  He was worried that either we would die, or that we would live, but his Legos would be lifted away in the wind.  It didn't help that the tornado warning would go off, then 15 minutes later it would go off again, extending the first tornado warning.  It seriously went on like that for most of Saturday and Sunday, and some of Monday.  So, Monday was just stressful with the rain.  The water level in the yard held fairly steady which amazed us with the amount of rain that was falling.  We knew the sewers and pumps must have been working constantly.  But then Tuesday came and we woke up to see the water level receding.  It was such a welcome sight.  For us, Tuesday was the light at the end of the tunnel.  The sidewalks were starting to show themselves again.  We still couldn't get out of our street because the water was still too high, but we saw progress all day long.  We even saw the sun shine again which we hadn't seen since the Thursday prior.  But what we also heard for much of the day on Tuesday were airboats and helicopters.  There were neighborhoods not that far from us that had mandatory evacuations and people were being rescued all day long.  Henry's tutor in CC had her family rescued by boat and an aerial shot of her home/neighborhood showed a lot of water.  Really, we have heard helicopters all week long.  A reservoir dam had a controlled release that flooded neighborhoods just to the north of us.  The dam was in danger of breaching, so they had to release some of the water or it would have affected a larger area.  However, the people who had to evacuate because of the controlled release were told that they would have 2-3 feet of water in their house for several weeks to months.  There is a neighborhood just to south of us that had a mandatory evacuation because of flooding.  It just is crazy to hear so much going on around us that we feel incredibly grateful and even slightly guilty that our situation has not been nearly so bad.

Sunday

Monday - note the brick and the rock (highlighted below). The rock is how high the water got on Sunday.

Tuesday

Wednesday - note the brick and the rock

What has also been amazing about the whole experience is the amount of help that has been extended to our area.  We still have three cases of water in our car trunk that we couldn't give away because the shelters were stocked.  It seems that right now people need muscle on the ground to tear out drywall and clear out damaged items from homes.  The school systems have all closed for two full weeks.  The libraries have been closed for almost a week and a half.  You never know what store is open until you pull up and read a hand-written sign on the door telling their hours or the lack thereof.  There are Facebook posts about which grocery store had milk.  The one I went to this evening had a limit of 2 milks/eggs/breads.  And yet, as much as these are uncertain times for this area, there is so much love extended to it, as well.  There are gobs of t-shirts being made with Isaiah 43:2 on it, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you."  In the end, the amount of water that fell on Houston was just staggering.  Hobby Airport received as much rain in a week as it usually does in a year.  The statistics surrounding the storm are astounding.

Something Harvey didn't destroy were mosquitoes, fire ants, and sod webworms.  In fact all three species spent the storm doubling their populations and have come back with a vengeance.  It is seriously ridiculous with the mosquitoes right now.

Todd was off all week as well.  I enjoyed that our classroom leadership doubled for a time.  Josiah would say, "I want Daddy to do handwriting and math with me."  Well, okay then.  Who am I to stop that?!!

In better news, the boys both took math tests this week and both received a 100%.  That was Josiah's first 100% on a math test that we can remember, so he was pretty happy with himself.  Henry was proud as well, but at the same time, he expects to get them all right.  He's just sort of that kid.  He does not like to miss problems.  Henry will also check his work over to make sure it is right before we grade it.  When Josiah is asked if he has checked his work, he will say that he is confident that he got them all right and doesn't need to check them over.  That is them in a nutshell.


Henry is just our little geography guy.  He loves maps.  He does the U.S. puzzle nearly every day as well as our Africa puzzle and world puzzle.  He spent time on his own quizzing himself on the states and capitals until he got them all right and he could find them all on a map.  Jimmy Kimmel went on the streets of L.A. a few weeks back and asked people if we should go to war with North Korea and then asked them to point North Korea out on a map.  It was quite sad to see some folks point to Canada.  I asked Henry and he immediately went over to Asia/China area and found it.  He keeps asking for the South America puzzle and a different world puzzle.  It is just his thing.  He loves it.  And to play into all this geography interest, he loves to mess around on googlemaps.  He can spend a good hour just traveling the world from the computer.  He'll go to a remote area in Egypt and then ask why he can't get a "street view."  He visits Senegal often.  He loves to travel "in" New York City.  He just loves it.  This is the Henry we love.  Then we call him to dinner and we get potty jokes and eating with fingers.  "Child, for the billionth time, use your fork!"  Such a dichotomy.

The kids finally got some outside time again this weekend.  The boys rode bikes in our circle.  Then when they were hot, they went to get juice boxes and walked arm-in-arm around the block sipping their juice and chatting each other up.  It was the sweetest thing because they just did it all on their own.  There are plenty of, "He called me stupid.  He hit me.  He kicked me in the face." around here, so that's why we have to take pictures of these moments.  They do like each other.


Josiah also made himself a "quiet spot" this weekend.  He decided that he likes the window seat...now that it's clean (from their loose papers, markers, books, scissors, balls, stuffed animals....).  He wrote a sign that said:

Josiah's quiet spot.

It began on 2017.

It changed the family.

[signed] Josiah Cockrell

If Josiah is quiet, I will say that will change the family, but we're not holding out hope here.  Caroline had the audacity to wander close to the quiet spot and I heard an angry tone, "Caroline, get out!  This is my quiet spot!  Stop it!"

For whatever reason, possibly because of Harvey, but we've made a couple of cakes this week.  The first was just your ordinary yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  But several family members did not want chocolate frosting, so here we have our "half and half."  When served, Henry got mad that Josiah and Caroline got two pieces of cake while he only got one.  No, Henry, they don't have any frosting to hold it together, so their dry top half just falls onto their plate.

And since it is now September and the pumpkin spice will be out in full force, we made a pumpkin bundt cake using one of the pans that Nana passed along to us.  It would have been prettier with confectioner's sugar sprinkled on the top, but we didn't have enough patience to wait for it to cool down before eating.

The boys had quite the conversation on the way to church:
Josiah, "I wish we could have Which Wich after church."
Todd, "You are going to have to make a lot of money, Josiah, for all the stuff you want."
Josiah, "Maybe I'll get a job at Jersey Mike's [Subs] or a pizzeria."
Henry, "And I'll be next door.... But you'll have to find one near NASA because I'm going to be a NASA engineer."
Josiah, "I could work in the cafeteria."
Life goals.
And that's why we'll be doing school on Labor Day.