Parent Proof: Check

Last weekend, Todd took Josiah out to ask him what his interests were.  He likes art, but does not want to take art lessons.  He wants to do gymnastics like Caroline.  And he wants to play the trumpet.  If he can't do trumpet, he wants to do French Horn, and if he can't do that he wants to play the violin.  That is my spring break goal to get the violin in working order.  I've spoken with a few music people about the trumpet and they've all told me that he's too young, his mouth and lungs need to be bigger and stronger.  If we can start on violin for a few years then he can at least learn how to read music so it'd give him a start.

This weekend Todd took Caroline to gymnastics (and then out to eat).  He said that she was up on the balance beam and they wanted the girls to walk backwards with their arms over their heads.  Caroline did well with that, but she would not do the second part - put her arms down on the beam and lift one leg in the air.  She's enjoying it.  After gymnastics they went to get tacos at a new restaurant.  Actually Caroline got a quesadilla and fries.  Quite the basket-o-carbs.  Todd got a few tacos.

We had our Parent Proofs this week.  I made the mistake of proofing Henry on Monday.  It dawned on me a few subjects into the proof that we should have had a day of review first and proofed him on Tuesday.  Since we had the field trip at the end of last week, it had been 5 days since we had reviewed at home.  He had been singing the history songs throughout the weekend, so I just assumed he was ready.  I knew he knew everything, but a day of review would have helped.  He made nervous mistakes, which he self-corrected, but it made him get upset and then he'd start to fall apart.  If we stopped the proof, we'd have to do the whole thing from start to finish the next day, so we plowed through.  He totally did fine and really I only marked one error because he confused two cities in geography (something he's never missed - geography is one of his best subjects).  I was surprised by his nervousness, though.  I'm hoping he keeps his nerves in check for the Tutor Proof.  We'll review ahead of time!  :)

Josiah passed his first Parent Proof.  He made one error in math, which we already knew he would make because he didn't know his "cubes."  It was amazing.  We reviewed all his trouble areas before we started and we noticed that all of his number errors involved the number 5.  He'd say 1868 instead of 1858; 1419 instead of 1519; 62 instead of 52.  So I told him to just keep the number 5 in mind for his trouble spots, and he totally got them all.  It was crazy.  He was ecstatic.  He passed it on Wednesday and we've been reviewing each day since as the Tutor Proof is next Wednesday.  All of the history sentences that he would get small errors on, he has completely memorized.  It's been an amazing experience to see him get it all, to not get frustrated, to not complain about review (most of the time), he's stepped up and worked for it.  He also really wants the Memory Master t-shirt.  He's been wearing Henry's two shirts (from last year) all week.  In the picture he's holding up his Timeline proof sheet.  Check marks for all 24 weeks.

Caroline does not do the proofs yet, but she has been doing a good job learning her CC material.  Just today she was trying to learn the President's song.  She got up to Taylor, who is #12, so she's getting there.  She did have her very first math test this week.  She aced it.  Smarty.

Caroline started 1st Grade Math and Henry finished 2nd Grade Math.  He had his final cumulative test to complete the book this week.  He handed it in, but I was busy working with Josiah, so I just took it without saying anything.  I knew he was mad when he handed it in because he didn't remember how to do a section.  It was the sort of thing that I really couldn't help him on without telling him the answer.  So he was mad.  After I corrected it, I asked him if he had checked it over before turning it in.  He said no.  I know.  He made a few silly errors and he didn't even answer one multiplication problem.  Simple stuff he would have found if he had checked it over.  Plus the section he couldn't remember.  It's one thing not to know how to do something, but it's another thing to miss it because you're mad and don't want to check your work!  Argh.  In good news, Henry has stopped biting and picking at his nails.  I never imagined the day would come so soon.  The reason he stopped biting and picking at them, however, is because he picked up a new habit.  Cracking his knuckles.  That may not sound like a big deal, but he is literally pushing on his hands/knuckles nearly constantly.  Not only that, but he cracks his toe knuckles.  Regularly.  It is so gross.  The worst part is that he likes to come into bed with us many mornings, so the first sound I hear in the morning is the sound of knuckles cracking.  Henry, if I have to hear your knuckles cracking one more time I'm going to go crazy!  As he informed me, "I have to have a habit."  Yeah, buddy, let's make it a good one.  But I am happy to see his fingernails looking so good again.

Tonight we did a little April Fool's Day prep.  The best part is that the kids have no idea that tomorrow is April Fool's Day.  Todd bought Oreos today and let the kids have some after dinner tonight.  It ensured they knew they were a safe and delicious food to eat.  Tonight, he opened up three cookies and filled the inside with anchovy paste and put them back together again.  That'll be dessert after dinner.  Just like tonight. We Saran wrapped their bedroom doors.  Caroline wakes up sleepily enough that she should walk right into it.  Josiah will most likely hit the one on the boys' door.  We also got them a bag of donuts as a special treat for tomorrow morning.  We told them that since it is such a big week, they'd start it off with a special treat.  They're really looking forward to them.  Unfortunately, we're going to fill it up with confectioner sugared broccoli.  I also have some fake bugs and snakes that might get put in interesting places as the day goes on.  We get too much joy out of this day.

A few other pictures of the week.  Caroline had a stripe day.

Another day the kids used their free time to create incredibly tall Dixie cup pyramids.

We also picked up our Fun Run packets and the boys had to keep tradition and jump over all the big balls outside the hospital.


This coming week is the big Tutor Proof.  I'm confident in their abilities, but still nervous for them!  It'll be Wednesday morning.  That afternoon will hopefully be filled with exhausted elation and ideally a nap.

Headshots

Caroline's friend from the neighborhood does ballet and recently gifted Caroline with her old toe shoes.  Caroline had been wearing them non-stop and dancing around the house.  She did it so much that her toes now hurt and she's laid off a bit, but she loves to dance around.  She can't decide whether she likes ballet or gymnastics best.


I tried to get a few pictures from gymnastics yesterday.  This time Caroline got to try the uneven bars.  They had to keep their arms straight with the bar at their hips and swing their legs.  She also practiced somersaults, cartwheels, and just kicking her feet up in the air.  I told her I saw the older girls doing the same kicking-up bit on the balance beam.  They had to kick their feet up and smack their toes together (at least that's what it looked like from the untrained eye).  Kick-smack.  Kick-smack.  This time Todd and the boys came along to see what it was like.  We quickly learned that one such child gleaned all he wanted to know about gymnastics in the first five minutes and then was torturing us with "I'm bored." and "When is it over?" for the next 55 minutes.  When we were in the car afterwards, Todd asked Caroline what was one thing that she struggled with or could work on to improve at gymnastics.  Her response?  Nothing.  She said she did everything perfectly.  Oh to have the confidence of a six-year-old.  2028 Olympics here we come.


The kids like to watch The Voice on TV.  It's the singing competition show in which the judges sit backwards so they cannot see the singers.  If they like the singing and want the singer on their team, they hit their button and it turns their chair around.  That way their picks are unbiased.  Our kids like to sit backwards from the TV and if they like the singer, they'll hit their imaginary button and turn around.  Caroline gets trigger happy and once the singing starts, she immediately "hits" her button.  She thinks she's hilarious.

Our CC Group went on a field trip to the Crocodile Encounter this past week.  The name of the place is somewhat ironic, because they quickly tell you that alligators, not crocs, are native to Texas.  Crocodiles are only native to Florida (in the U.S.).  We also learned that alligators do not see humans as food.  They only attack about one person every 50 years and it's usually provoked.  However, crocodiles eat a significant number of people per year.  They also said that the alligators and crocodiles could only digest food when their bodies were warm, so they didn't eat anything in December or January and were only now starting to eat regularly again.  (If their bodies aren't warm enough, the food just sits in their stomach and rots.)  In the first pond, the guide introduced us to the five alligators there.  They had Big Girl, No Name, two others, and Henry.  Henry's full name was Stubborn Henry, so our group got a kick out of that.  The name fits.  This particular guide was pretty funny.  He showed us the tortoises and talked about how they were terrestrial creatures.  He said that while turtles can swim, tortoises only "float with style."  We saw pond after pond (after pond, after pond) of alligators and crocodiles.  Then towards the end of the tour, we reached the goats.  They had goats, lemurs, pot-belly pigs, and a few other big animals.  Why they had goats they didn't say, but after all the reptiles, the goats were incredibly fun to watch and we were able to hand feed them carrots.  It was a good ending.

Our CC group does a yearbook every year, so this week I tried to get the kids yearbook pictures done.  I thought they turned out pretty well.  We only have three weeks of CC left!  It'll be a busy few weeks, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

At CC this week, it was Dress Your Mom Day.  The kids kept talking about what dress they wanted me to wear, so I was anticipating a dress-up kind of day.  But when the day arrived, the boys thought it would be hilarious for me to wear Todd's old KISS shirt.  I appreciated being comfortable for the day, but also felt the need to pin a "not my band" note to the shirt.  Henry had a good CC day because he learned the last history sentence and now has everything memorized for Memory Master.  We're going to do the Parent Proof with him on Tuesday, which he should pass without a problem.  Josiah may need some prayers because his Parent Proof is on Wednesday and I'm hoping he'll pass.

Henry finished his week with another karate belt test.  Todd said that he did really well and that he had ninja-like rolls.  He broke many boards with his hands and feet.  It's sort of a shame that he doesn't like karate anymore.  He is basically fulfilling his commitment to complete it until August, but mentally he's done.  He doesn't enjoy it anymore, which is sad because he seems to do so well in class. 

And that was our week.  

Caroline the Gymnast

It was Spring Break for the public schools this week.  That meant we had neighbor kids who knocked on our door ready to play a wee bit before we were done with school.  We are not going to take our spring break until April because we are studying for Memory Master for the next couple of weeks.  The boys are both going to go for it this year.  Henry is nearly ready and Josiah is on his way to being ready.  This is when they have to memorize every thing they learned from all 7 subjects for all 24 weeks of our Classical Conversations curriculum.  Henry has only one or two weeks of history left to memorize, but he has everything else completed.  Josiah has a ways to go, but he will get there.  I really want him to try because I think he'll be upset if his younger brother makes it a second year in a row and he doesn't.  He's very capable and he's come so far in his memorization since last year.  Last year, the timeline song was his nemesis - he couldn't make it through the whole thing (actually he couldn't get past week 1 without a mistake).  Currently, he's got the whole song with 10-12 errors throughout (which is good considering the song has 161 date facts).  We have a week and a half before the first Parent Proof is due, which is where either Todd or I quiz them on everything.  The following week they will have a Tutor Proof that has to be perfect - no prompts, no helps, nothing.  The week after that is the Director Proof in which she asks 25% of the material and that is usually passed with no problem.  So that is going to be a big focus of ours for the next few weeks.  Although we're still doing most of our school work as well because when I only did our regular history book three days this past week, Josiah complained because that's his favorite.  I was trying not to crowd our days (or their brains) too much!  Josiah is also working on a year end paper in his Essentials writing class for CC.  They had to choose anyone from Ancient History.  Greek and Roman gods counted, and Josiah chose Poseidon.  It's a regular paper - three topics, intro, conclusion, bibliography.  Then he has to present the paper as Poseidon in front of his class and they have to guess who he is.  (Write it in third person, present it in first person.) The next four weeks are going to be busy!  I'm sort of tired just thinking about it and I don't even have to do all the memorizing.  (Although I do let the boys "proof" me just for fun and to see if I can get through it all.  They covet their time as exam proctor.)

Since all of our activities were cancelled for Spring Break, our evenings were free which was wonderful.  We spent several of them walking/jogging around the new paths in our neighborhood.  They put sidewalks around a big retention pond and it's been good to get out and walk.  The evenings have been in the 60s here so it's been beautiful weather.  When we jog we say we're in training for our annual Fun Run 1K which is coming up next month.  My goal is always not to embarrass myself.  For the kids, it's good for them to learn to pace themselves.

The boys had a good week when Todd granted them permission to play Minecraft.  They love it which was no surprise.  The best is when they want to "show" us what they built in their village, but their "showing" involves a lot of playing.  Are you showing me or are you just building a whole new building?  Todd even started his own village to see how he manages in the Minecraft Survival mode.  I do a lot of smiling and nodding.  Uh huh.  I see.  Yeah.  That's cool.  Wow.  Good job.  And that's just with Todd's world. (Just kidding...)

Mid-week, we had a field trip with our CC group.  One of the moms had contacted the Bach Society and found they did 45-minute (free!) presentations for school groups.  We met at the library and they brought a harpsichord player, a violinist, a singer, and a speaker.  This is what these four men did for a living and they were pretty amazing.  The singer was a bass and sang in German, Bach's native tongue.  Josiah and I were incredibly interested in the whole thing.  Henry and Caroline were slightly less interested.  However, after the concert we went to Blaze Pizza because it was Pi Day and all pizzas were $3.14.  They showed some interest in the pizza.  We had never been to this particular pizza place and it was a bit like Subway the way they constructed your pizza with you standing there choosing all the sauces, cheeses, and toppings.  Their shtick was that they fired them in the oven for 180 seconds, so they were a bit thin and crispy, but really tasty.


Caroline had a bit of an emotional night one evening this week.  It was bedtime and she was just bawling that she really likes to play with her doll, Ja'Neesa, the most and she feels so sad for the people who bought her other toys (like every other toy she owns) because she doesn't play with them, but she likes Ja'Neesa so much.  So we talked about it and how she may go back to playing with other toys after a while and it was okay to play with her doll, plus so many people bought the clothes and accessories for Ja'Neesa and she plays with all of those.  She decided to rotate sleeping with a different stuffed animal each night to make them all feel loved.
The emotions didn't stop there, though.  The next day we were in the car and she was upset with Josiah.  She pleaded with him, We used to love each other and play and we got along.  Now we just fight.  I want us to love each other and to not fight.  I want us to play nicely again.  It was pretty mature of her to recognize how things had changed between them.  Josiah has a little of the pre-teen attitude going on and he isn't always the kindest with his words.  Being homeschooled, the kids really do play together (nicely) every day, although the enormous amounts of together time also means they usually fight every day, too.  The day after that exchange, all three kids were in the car and Caroline wrote out, "I no [know] we love each other." 

She also wrote "I love you Josiah.  I love you Henry."  So sweet.  Thankfully, Henry responded in kind at the bottom.

We also have officially determined that Caroline loves gymnastics.  This Saturday she had her free trial class and when it was over she didn't want to come off of the mats. She wanted to stay for the next class.  When I told her we had to go in the office to sign her up, she asked if she could do it every day.  Let's start with one day.  She really loved it.  It was such a huge gym with literally dozens and dozens of kids that I didn't feel comfortable taking a picture.  Then the minute we got home she ran to the neighbor's house, so I never did get a picture of her in her leotard.  Needless to say, she loved it.  They stretched, did the splits, jumped on trampolines, did cartwheels and somersaults, jumped over the balance beam, and lots more.  It is a neat gym with all the equipment you would think of with gymnastics - lots of balance beams, foam pits, vaults, uneven bars, as well as rings and pommel-horses for the boys.  My inner child would have loved to try it all out.

This afternoon we went to a Bon Voyage party for Henry's after-class teacher at CC.  She and her husband are headed to SE Asia to help with human trafficking.  She requested no gifts because obviously they can only bring so much with them, but the whole drive to church this morning and on the drive to the party, Henry made her origami animals/objects.  He handed her a grocery bag full of them when we got to the party and she was so kind and went through the whole bag with him naming everything he made.  She has been one of Henry's favorite people.  There are just some people/teachers that you're drawn to and admire and she was that to Henry.  We are so sad to see her go and will miss her a lot, but are grateful there are people that do the hard work she's going to do.

We're back to our regular schedule this week.  I'll miss all the activity-free evenings, although Caroline has requested that we have Game Night on all the days we don't have activities.  She thinks Game Night is the best. 

Six Years with Caroline

This was one busy week.  From Wednesday to Friday we were on the go nonstop, but for the most part it was all for a fun reason.  Wednesday we went to the Houston Rodeo with another CC family.  There were two of us moms and seven children.  She and I counted to seven nearly 500 times that day.  We kept all our ducks in a row.  The nice thing was that Caroline had a buddy and they held hands the entire time.  Josiah is in class with the two oldest kids and he and the oldest girl talked nearly the entire time.  Henry was a little bit of the odd man out, but he became my buddy for the day.  It was good to go with another family because we did some things that we normally didn't do.

We splurged and did the pony ride which they all loved.  Their circle of ponies included the speedwalker Malibu, who was interested in giving the kids as quick a ride as possible.  Henry kept lassoing his arm in the air like he was going to tame some buckin' bronco.

We learned about bees, bugs, and bunnies.  We saw the miniature cows, donkeys, and horses.  We walked over to the birthing area where they had pregnant pigs, goats, and cows, as well as a bunch that had already had their offspring.  The lady we spoke to said that the animals typically always come on their due date.  Only one pig was four days late and her babies were quite large.  On gigantic screens above the birthing area, they showed a continuous loop of calves, piglets, and kids being birthed.  I can still visualize the entire calf birth as we saw it several times.


We ate giant turkey legs, corn dogs, fries, and churros. 

This year we got the carnival pack, so we had 150 tickets for the kids to use on carnival games and rides.  Some rides are 10 tickets a person (nearly all were more than 5 per person), so they got a lot of fun in and we got to say that when the tickets were done, so were we.  The very first thing they chose to do was the hall of mirrors.  Two of our three kids came out with red spots on their foreheads where they banged into a mirror.  Most of the rides were spinny rides, so I would take some pictures and then look the other way while the ride finished.  The only one I actually went on was a ferris wheel because the little girls needed an adult rider.  They had a lot of fun and the carnival pack we bought was totally worth the money.

We spent the final tickets on carnival games.  The very first one we went to was a water gun that you had to aim at the target.  It would blow up a balloon and the first person whose balloon popped got that prize.  This was the same game Henry won at Disney World, so I think he thought he had it in the bag.  He played it about 10 times (no joke) and never won.  He was so close at least half of those times, but he never got the prize.  He was pretty disappointed and slightly angry.  So we used our last tickets at the throwing game just a few steps away.  You had to throw a beanbag type thing and pop a balloon to get a prize.  All three of our kids were able to pop a balloon and so they won the small stuffed ice cream cones.  Henry wanted to try to pop more balloons to work his way up to a large toy, but it was at that point that we ran out of tickets.  Time to head home.  Actually, it was time to head to Sam's to get Caroline's birthday cake, grab some dinner, and head to church for WAM.

We made it to WAM on time (but just barely).  After WAM is over each week, we always walk the kindergarten class to a couple of rooms where they play until their parents pick them up, and it is called Little Lights.  Caroline has been asking all year to stay late for Little Lights.   She never had any need to go because we could just drive home after WAM.  But every week as we walk our class to Little Lights, she always asks if she can stay.  Usually she wants to stay because she sees what they're having for snack...  So, I asked the director if she could do it just one time as a treat.  This week was her night to go.  When I picked her up she said that it wasn't as fun as she thought (yay for me!), but that she really liked the snack: donut holes, always a delicious treat at 7:30 p.m.

The next morning, our little Caroline was six!  She wanted us to hide her gifts just like Henry, so we had a scavenger hunt set up for her.  She also said she wanted to be able to read the clues (no help from her brothers), and seeing how it was really difficult to write clues using only three-letter words, the vast majority of clues were: "Look!" followed by a picture of where she should look. 

She ran around collecting them all with a lot of excitement.  Both sets of grandparents and we got her lots of doll accessories.  The very thing she wanted.  She has dressed up and changed her doll's outfit time and time again.  Grandad and Nana's accessories came with a suitcase and Ja'Neesa, the doll, has traveled all over the world in every outfit she owns.  The day after her birthday she mentioned that what she really wanted was a doll outfit to match her outfit.  And then what should arrive in the mail, but that very thing given to her by her cousins.  She was ecstatic!  She was also given a glitter wand from Grandma & Grandpa that she plays with nearly as much as the doll clothes.  If you hold it upright all the glitter falls to the bottom, but all you have to do is turn it to get the air bubble to travel up to the opposite end sending the glitter all down the tube.  She thinks it's a magic trick and has asked me countless times where the glitter has gone.  Poof, there it is!  I actually had the same toy as a kid and remember doing the same thing - watching the air bubble hit the glitter at the end and watching it spread, making the glitter all fall back to the bottom and letting that air bubble go get it again.  Mesmerizing fun.  ;) 
Opening up three sets of doll clothes/accessories:

For breakfast she chose Tastykake donuts. I couldn't believe she didn't want real, fresh, delicious glazed donuts.  I think after eating the Tastykakes that she'll go for the real thing next year.  She had CC on her birthday, so we were gone nearly all day.  We did bring in Entenmann's party cakes to give out to the girls in her class. They sang Happy Birthday to her, too, which made her really happy.  After CC we quickly dropped all our gear off at home before heading out to dinner at Sweet Tomatoes.  Caroline came decked out in her latest fashion - new boots, new skirt, and the head-to-toe striped clothing was to match her doll's outfit.

We made it back home to eat some princess cake and crash into bed.  She had a good day.


Since Caroline was at CC for nearly the whole day on her birthday, we took Friday off and headed to the Children's Museum in the morning.  They played around in the grocery area.  Henry was adding up the lobsters to see how high he could get the total bill to be. 

Josiah was running around to all the ATM machines trying to withdraw money only to be told that he had insufficient funds.  The kids do have the ability to "earn" money by working different jobs around the museum.  Josiah delivered newspapers to all the buildings, but that appeared to be more of a voluntary job as opposed to a money making venture.  We went into the art area where they had the spin art machines set up.  Instead of squirting out paint onto the surface of the paper and watching it spread out in circles, they had markers out.  So, if you held the marker down it would move in circles as the paper spun around.  It was a novel concept and far neater to make than if we had used paints.  Plus there was no drying time which was good for me as I had to hold them all.  We were happy to make it out of there with no contagious diseases (at least none that have surfaced yet).  The last two times we went to this particular museum, we were given the gift of pink eye.  I still have eye drops at the ready if necessary.

We left the museum to take Henry and Caroline to the doctor's office for their yearly check-ups.  We learned that they both grew a little over 3" this year.  We also confirmed that they can both see and hear perfectly well.  So they have no excuse that they "didn't hear me" when I tell them to pick up their things/do their school work/eat their vegetables/and all the other fun stuff I get to say around here.

This weekend, Todd took Henry out for some one-on-one time.  They went to a sushi restaurant with a revolving sushi bar. 

Basically they sat at a table and could pull off plates of sushi that were rotating on a conveyor belt.  Each plate had 2-4 pieces of sushi on it.  You paid by the plate, so when you finished a plate you put it in a contraption at the end of your table that counted the number of plates you consumed.  If you made it to 15 plates, you got some sort of prize.  Henry was hoping to get the prize, but Todd cut them off at 13 plates.  They tried California rolls, (cooked) beef rolls, (cooked) shrimp sushi, and tuna rolls.  Todd special ordered an eel sushi plate to try.  They both said they definitely wanted to go back and despite being served from a conveyor belt, Todd said it all tasted really fresh and good.  After lots of sushi they stopped at another restaurant and had crepes for dessert.

While they were dining like kings, Caroline and I got our hair trimmed.  The whole experience was very predictable.  She said she wanted a trim, she told me exactly how much she wanted cut off, I told the hair dresser who cut off 1.5" and when all was said and done, Caroline remarked that she actually wanted really long hair.  I told her if we trimmed it every now and again, it would grow healthier as it grew longer.  That seemed to satisfy her desire to have long Rapunzel hair immediately.  We finished it up with eating at Jersey Mike's, one of Caroline's favorite sub places.

Josiah says, "No sushi. Yay subs."

Henry's weekend ended well.  Todd granted Henry's deepest desires this afternoon by installing Minecraft on one of our devices.  Henry has taken out countless Minecraft books from the library, read about how to play the game ad nauseum, has begged us for weeks to install the game, and then when I went to upload my photos today, he had taken 108 pictures from one Minecraft book about all the different instructions for creating certain things within the game.  There could possibly be copyright issues with the sheer number of pages photographed...  He wore us down.  He hasn't actually played it yet, but it's on his docket for tomorrow.  After school.

It is Spring Break for this area this coming week.  For us that means no karate, no church activities, and no Awana.  A nice restful week in that respect, but we're still doing school until we finish Memory Master at the beginning of April.  Then we'll take a week off as a reward.