Eating Your Science Experiment

Caroline had a big accomplishment this week. 

She successfully made it through the entire month of January without sucking her thumb.  She did tell me that sometimes she 'sucks' food off of her thumb, but I told her that didn't count because she is technically licking it off.  We are so excited for her that she is finally kicking the habit.  She was disappointed to learn that we are going to continue taping up her thumb at night for the foreseeable future.  She thought it was one-month-and-done sort of thing.  Since she picked going to Monkey Joe's as her prize for January, she's already asked about what she gets for February.  I told her I'd give her a big hug and a hearty handshake.  She wasn't impressed.  She has stopped sucking it when we drive in the car and when she watches TV; it's been really neat to see her keep her hands away from her face.  Her thumb-sucking thumbnail was always a little thinner than the rest and usually cracked at the top and that has all resolved.  She loves her nails now.  She never wants me to trim them, but wants them to look like grown-woman long nails.  Ironically she does not want them polished.

We did make it out to Monkey Joe's on Friday for Caroline's celebration. 

She was able to bring a friend from CC with her.  They had a bunch of fun and even befriended another little girl about their age.  The three of them were running all over the place.  Monkey Joe's has added a bunch of arcade games, which the kids wanted to play non-stop.  They did "play" all the demos many times. 

At one point Josiah was hanging out with a girl his age because she had an arcade card.  He says she asked him to help her play a game so she could get more tickets.  I did try to make sure he wasn't being a mooch.
At the start of our time there, Henry was trying to help a little girl up one of the bouncy slides.  From then on, she was following him around.  She was about 3-4 years old and Henry was super good with her.  I love how kids can just make friends at the drop of a hat.

This weekend Josiah had yet another birthday party.  This one was a pool party way on the other side of town.  We drove the kids from the north side of town and the boys talked about beyblades the entire hour drive there.  Which beyblade was their favorite, which beyblades they want to buy, and highlights from their past battles.  I stayed focused on the road.
The party was at a rec center with a very fun pool.  They had a giant water slide, but they also had a lazy river.  From where I was sitting, it looked like people were just walking in a circle, but lots of people were doing it.  Later Josiah told me that the water in it was pushing them around.  He had a lot of fun.

Josiah at the top of the slide.

The lazy river (during break so people didn't wonder why I was taking a picture of them).

The party was over at 5:00 p.m. and I figured it would take the boys, at most, five minutes to get changed.  These were boys, right?  Trunks off, shorts on.  They came out of the bathroom at 5:25 p.m.  What they were doing I have no idea.  The drive home took almost two hours because it was rainy and people drove incredibly, annoyingly, not-necessary-to-drive-this-slow, slow.  The drive back did have its highlights though, because the boys were back on the subject of beyblades but this time they were picking each bey that fit each person's personality.  Then they would explain why it fit their personality.  One boy said that Josiah was like Spurizen (sp???) because he [Josiah] was very kind and that he stands up for other people.  Awww.  That was the best thing for a mom to hear.  The boys were so kind - giving each other compliments on their personality traits.  It was really awesome to witness.  While beyblade talk took up 98% of the conversations, another 2% was feeling Josiah's muscles.  At one point Josiah decided to show all the other kids his biceps and have them feel them.  They were impressed with how much the muscle stood up from his arm. 

This afternoon our kids played with the neighbor kids for hours upon hours.  We even watched the beginning of the Super Bowl together.  The boys all stood for the National Anthem.  This was probably the only moment that they were silent during the entire time we watched the game.

We did get school work done this week as well.  We're doing Roots in botany and we did an experiment with carrots and blue water.  We had one carrot in a sunny window and another carrot in the refrigerator.  We only had baby carrots on hand, so that's what we used.  Both sucked up a lot of water to make them turn blue.  The boys were surprised to see an orange inside when we sliced each carrot in half.  Then they ate their experiment much to the disgust of their sister. 

While I was out at one of my CC meetings this week, learning how to teach Josiah's new writing unit, Todd took the kids to Raising Cane's. 

He texted me that he earned many dad points for that excursion.  I earned zero points for learning "Inventive Writing."  However, Josiah is going to enjoy this unit much more since it is creative writing which he loves.  He has tried to make every paper he's written into a creative writing paper.  He always wants to talk to the audience when he writes.  Now I'm going to tell you about this.  You won't believe what happened next!  He loves an audience.

That was our week.  Instead of CC this coming week, we have a field trip to the Health Museum in Houston.  It should be fun!