Different

This week was our CC Practicum.  It is when the parents get some training and encouragement for their next school year and the kids get to play in camps.  This year Henry and Caroline were both in Geo-Draw camp, while Josiah was in Math Mania.  Josiah walked in the room, saw a code upon the board, and quite unexcitedly muttered, I think they're doing real math in here.  It was a simple code on the board in which they had to figure out their teacher's name.  A=26, B=25, etc.  When I picked him up that afternoon, he had already written it down on an index card so he and Henry could write in code to each other.  Henry spent the entire three days of Practicum getting as dirty as he possibly could.  They went out on the playground for three hours each day.  He was caked in dirt by the end of each day.  I made him bathe each evening and when the tub was drained, the entire bottom was filled with dirt.  I've never seen anything like it.

Typically we do Practicum in July, so the kids were pretty happy to do it in May and miss three days of school.  We did squeeze some school in the last two days of the week.  We did an experiment about air currents.  As the sun heats up the air each day, the molecules expand and move more quickly creating air currents.  The experiment showed that happening, but using water so we could see it better.  We had a baking pan filled with water.  Underneath it on one end we had a cup of ice and the other end had a cup of boiling water.  After two minutes we put one drop of food coloring on each side.  The warm water moved the food coloring around quickly while the cold water made it flow slower.  It was really cool to watch.  You not only saw it flow horizontally, but you could see the vertical difference, too, with the cooler water sinking.  Josiah and I were mesmerized.

It was a busy, tiring week.  By Friday morning no one knew what they wanted for breakfast, but they knew it was nothing that we had.  So, Henry had chips and fresh salsa and Josiah had a slightly less healthier chips and cheese dip.  It was food in their bellies.

Caroline had her orange-white belt test this weekend.  She was in there with four other kids and she kicked tail.  She hasn't had a belt test in a long time because she didn't want to do karate for quite a while, so I kept saying no to the belt tests (why pay for something she doesn't want to do?).  But she's been back into it the past couple of months and she was excited to test for it this time.  Because of that, it was an easy belt to test for because she knew her stuff really well.  During the self-defense portion, the instructor came at her, trying to keep her on the ground.  Once she made it to her feet, he then intimidates her and grabs her hands.  She has techniques that she has to use to get out of his grip.  She was doing a good job, but at one point she slapped the side of his face.  Then she slapped it again.  Apparently there was a time for her to do it (like when he had a hand up there to stop her hand), but she threw out the rules when confronted.  Of course, this is what I'd prefer if it happened in real life.  She told me beforehand that her favorite part was when they break the boards at the end.  This time she was able to kick through two boards, but was pretty disappointed she couldn't kick through the third.  She did well.

Todd found something for us to do this weekend.  It was a Memorial Day event honoring Danny Dietz, a Navy Seal that died in 2005.  Todd had mentioned that there was a car show as part of the day.  As we got there and started walking to the entrance, Josiah pointed to a car in the parking lot and said, "Is that one of the antique cars?"  Yeah.  That one there's from way back in the 80s.

We weren't sure if the event picked up in the evenings with the BBQ and singers, but in the afternoon, it was pretty sparse.  They had a bounce house that the kids played on a lot.  Next to it was a mechanical bull.  The boys took many rides on the bull.  The man who was working the remote control would always start off really slow and let the kids get used to it, but then if they were doing well, he's swing them around and if they were staying on too long, he'd whip that bull and knock them right off.  We cracked up each time.  (He wasn't hurting them.)  We watched an ax throwing competition and then wandered over to the horse arena.  It was teams of two roping a calf.  One would rope the head, the other would rope the hind legs and the animal would go down.  These guys were accomplishing this in about six/seven seconds time.  It became clear, though, that we have raised city kids.  Instead of seeing Calf Roping, The Sport, they saw, Calf Roping, Animal Cruelty.  They really felt sorry for the calf.  Henry, in particular, asked to leave so we did.  Before we left to go home, two enjoyed a cupcake and one enjoyed a snow cone.

For Memorial Day today we took a jaunt around the retention pond in our neighborhood.  The kids rode their bikes and for the beginning of the circuit, Caroline was in the lead.  She had moments of panic when she encountered wasps, birds, and a slight incline in the sidewalk.  She actually fell off her bike going up the small incline because she wasn't used to any increase in elevation.  She did fine after that and rode far ahead of us.  Todd told the boys he thought they would make laps around us.  Up to that point they had been riding for a good distance, but would then turn around and come back to us.  Once he mentioned lapping us, they were off.  Even though it's only a retention pond, it is a nice walk.

Caroline was sitting with me outside one evening.  We were talking about her friends and how to make friends and things of that sort.  Then she filled me in on an observation, "You're nothing like Mrs. X."
Me - Oh yeah, in what way?
C - She buys her kids whatever they want and she does whatever they say.
Me - You're right, we are different. 
In my mind all I could think was -- and you kids are different from her kids.  I can only see that as a compliment, though it wasn't given as one.

The kids begin their swim lessons this week.  They're looking forward to getting back in the pool.

Kindergarten Graduate

Josiah is still into the Beatles.  He checked out two CDs from the library and has been listening to them A LOT.  He doesn't quite know all the words to the songs yet, so he just repeats what he knows.  We've heard, "She loves me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah." about a thousand times and, "Help!  I need somebody.  Help.  I need somebody." another thousand more times (It's Not just anybody.  Ack!).  And nothing blesses you more than hearing your ten year old sing, "I get high with a little help from my friends." He's put on many a concert with his lightsaber-guitar-microphone.  He can't seem to understand that, while we enjoy his concerts, 3-4 concerts a day is a bit much for even the biggest Beatles lover.  Many of his concerts include Caroline sometimes on her microphone, but most of the time dancing up a storm. 

The boys wanted to earn some money this week, so they swept our back patio area.  It was a mess at the start - tons of leaves and dirt everywhere.  They did a great job and not only swept it, but cleaned and organized it, too.  The toys and furniture were put back neatly.  I was impressed.
They also worked on some future career opportunities.  I got a wrench out to tighten Caroline's handlebars.  That prompted Josiah to be in a pit crew for Henry's bike racing.  There were lots of super fast wrench, crowbar, and screwdriver movements and Henry was off again.  At one point they switched places and Henry became pit master.  Caroline was the flag girl and would wave the biker back into the race once all adjustments and repairs were made.

Caroline has already started doing tricks on her bike.  She figured out how to stand up on her pedals lifting her bum off the seat.  She did that for a few days before figuring out how to pedal while standing up as well.  Since she's keen on riding her bike every day, I had a startling discovery when I sorted laundry this weekend.  There were no dresses!  I always have a pile of her dresses and there were none.  She's switched to shorts and capris which are compatible with her riding.   She had been a dress girl through and through, but now she saves them for Sunday.

Caroline had a special graduation ceremony at church this week.  Each year they put on a kindergarten graduation where they take the kids for a few hours of fun before the actual ceremony part.  Caroline painted and made crafts, ate pizza, she got to visit the big kid game room and she played ga-ga ball on the big kid playground (it's sort of dodgeball but for the knees down).  She had an incredibly fun time and was all smiles when we saw her at the ceremony.  She got to walk across the stage, get her certificate,and have a celebratory cupcake before the night was out.  The boys had fun at the playground while waiting for her fun time to finish.

She had a good week.  She even got a new hat for the summer.

This coming week we are doing a three-day Practicum for our CC group.  While I'm listening to speakers/teachers all day long, the kids are in Geo-Draw and Math Mania camps.  Henry was really happy that he wouldn't have to do school for three days.  So, yes, no school because he'll be learning how to draw the countries of the world in camp.  No learning happening there.  The countdown til the end is on.

Just the Toppings

The Houston area had a ton of rain this week.  It doesn't take long for roads to fill up with water around here, because the land is so flat.  It rained all day Tuesday, but we still ventured out to karate, because it wasn't pouring.  Of course, ten minutes into karate, the rain became an intense downpour.  The lightning was so close that one strike blinded my eyes for a second.  I don't think I've ever seen such a close bolt before and the sound from the thunder was so loud that everything vibrated.  I was in my car, but I could see all the kids in karate jump at the sound.  The rain got bad again Thursday night into Friday morning.  Todd still got up and went to work.  He said there was no traffic (because all the school systems had closed) and he arrived at 7:40 a.m.  Ten minutes later he got the text that they were opening at noon.  So he left early Friday afternoon and came home just in time to see Caroline practicing her riding again.  She's loving riding her bike.  She asks to do it every day now and her comfort level on the bike increases exponentially each day as well.  Friday she was riding up the curbs and through puddles.  Today we asked her to come home from the neighbor's house and she just hopped on and rode over like she's been doing it forever.

Beauty

Caroline has been improving in gymnastics as well.  Todd took some pictures of her on the balance beam.  The beams are way in the back of the gym, so the pictures are blurry, but she had to walk the beam and with each step, lift her knee up high in front of her, kick out her foot and step down.  She did really well maintaining her balance.  She's been getting better with her splits and her bridge, too.  At the moment, cartwheels are her nemesis, but she's practicing them a lot.  In fact we got an incident report from church today that Caroline hurt her leg on the playground because she was practicing flips and cartwheels.


Caroline has also been perfecting her hand-clapping-game technique.  I have no idea what it's called, except that we used to clap Miss Mary Mack as kids.  Caroline's routine is clap hands together, clap both hands with partner, clap hands together, cross hands & clap with partner.  Repeat.  She likes to practice it with Todd and me, she likes to go fast, and if we're doing well, she likes us to close our eyes.  The funniest part to Todd is that she has a hard time closing her mouth  - the faster she goes, the wider her mouth opens.

Henry has transitioned from sports books (since he read them all) to animal books.  We were at the library one day this week and he picked up 41 books each on a different type of animal/bird/reptile.  When he brought the books over to me, he said, "I took the entire section."  So every 599 book from the juvenile section of the library resides in Henry's book bin.

Conversely, Josiah is into the Beatles.  He goes through little obsessions and right now he's very much into the Beatles.  He's written books about them, comic books, drawings, and he's even written a letter to Paul McCartney.  He keeps checking out books about them and regaling us with lots of little fun facts.  He's watched their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show quite a number of times.  Henry, meanwhile, was shocked to learn they were British.  When I told him that, he responded, "All of them?" 

Henry's had a cold this week and has required many a tissue.  I had told him to go blow his nose at one point and he disappeared with no nose blowing to be heard.  He came back and informed me, "I put water down my nose to get the nucleus, but it dissolved so I don't need to blow my nose."  Aw, you confused your science terms.

Todd made good on his promise to take the kids to Tutti Frutti since we missed it after the WAM concert.  After Caroline got her frozen yogurt, she asked to put her toppings in a different container.  I said no, because you pay by weight and those cups aren't light.  So she filled her yogurt cup up with toppings.  Then, as she took a few bites, she said she shouldn't have gotten any of the yogurt, just the toppings and she stopped eating it.  I think this is the exact same thing that happened last year.  She's a toppings girl through and through, as evidenced by her bowls of sprinkles that she consumes every time we go to Sweet Tomatoes.


Three more weeks of school.  I just learned that the public schools around here only have two more weeks of school, so I may have a mutiny on my hands in two weeks time.

Caroline Rides a Bike

Henry is frequently talking about what he wants to be when he grows up.  Typically, he wants to be a professional baseball player and the only changes he makes is which team will draft him.  This week, however, he added "cop" to the list.  It seemed to come out of nowhere, but when he said it, I told him he'd be a good police officer because he likes things to be fair and he tends to be a peacemaker with his siblings.  He replied, "Yeah, and I can run fast."  So apparently he's more into the chasing criminals aspect of the job.

We have had quite the weekend around here.  Friday night the kids had made the plan to all sleep on the bunk beds.  Henry, the most insistent about it, convinced me that he had practiced sleeping in this formation all day.  This is what they practiced: Henry UNDER the mattress, Caroline ON the mattress, and Josiah comfortably resting on top bunk.  After seeing their plan, taking a photo to laugh about later, Todd and I just walked out of the room with a Good Night and Good Luck!  This was a lesson that would (painfully) teach itself.  There was the usual chatter when they went to bed, but after 10 minutes or so, it got quiet.  They didn't really fall asleep, did they?  At 9:00 p.m., I walked upstairs incredulous that they would have been able to fall asleep.  Their fierce determination to stick to the plan had kept them quiet.  When I told them they had made a valiant effort, however it was time to actually go to sleep and that Caroline could sleep on a palate on their floor, a very sweaty and relieved Henry emerged from under the mattress.  He told me that his skin was all prickly.  Right.  That would be the blood coming back into your limbs and fingers.

Saturday morning, Todd took the boys to Costco while Caroline and I were at gymnastics.  Todd went to get some ground beef and Henry walked with him, saying, "I want some meat."
Todd - "I'm getting meat.  I'm getting ground beef."
Henry - "No, I want this meat."  (steaks)
Todd - "I'm getting ground beef."
Henry - "It's only $11.00."
Todd - "A pound.  $11.00 a pound.  It's $53.00 total."
Henry - "How about this one?"  (A $39.00 slab-o-beef.)
Todd - ... 

Saturday evening the kids wanted to ride their bikes after dinner.  I was sitting outside with them when Caroline decided that she wanted to ride her two-wheel bike.  I wasn't exactly keen on running alongside of her to practice the two-wheeler, so I told her to push one pedal down, kick off with her other foot, and just glide.  She could practice balancing.  She did this for a while and was doing a good job gliding along.  Then I looked at her and noticed she had both feet on the pedals.  Then she just started riding her bike down the sidewalk.  And that's how the third child learns to ride a bike.  The most amazing part, however, was that she never crash landed.  It always seems to be the case that braking is another hard skill to learn.  I watched her and she actually eased on the brakes while riding into the grass and then she'd effortlessly hop off.  The girl has skills.  That's my girl.

Sunday afternoon we had our WAM concert.  We've had a lot of WAM this week - three rehearsals and the final show.  The performance went really well.  The show was based off of the movie, The Greatest Showman.  We sang all of the same songs as the movie, but the lyrics were changed so that they were speaking about Jesus.  They were really fun, upbeat songs.  All three of our kids were belting it out for most of them.  After watching the accompanying drama during the rehearsals, Josiah said that next year he wants to be one of the actors.  The kids remembered that we got Tutti Frutti (frozen yogurt) after the concert last May, so they were hopeful that we would have it again.  They are all about traditions, especially those that have to do with dessert.  Todd and I found it amazing that they remembered they had Tutti Frutti 12 months ago, but they can't remember to pick up their dirty clothes from the bathroom floor despite being reminded Every Single Day.  Nevertheless, by the time the WAM concert was over, it was a bit after six in the evening.  We were exhausted.  We had left our house a little over 9 hours earlier and we were hungry for dinner.  We told the kids they could make ice cream sundaes at home and that we'd have to do a different tradition after WAM concerts because the performance days are so long.  Todd told them we could do Tutti Frutti another day sometime soon.  Two children were disappointed, but accepted the ice cream sundae idea.  One child insisted we hated them, we never loved them, and we would never go to Tutti Frutti again.  Ever.  After ignoring the rants of said child, they ate a bit of dinner, raising their blood sugar to "pleasant mood" level and all was right in the world again.

Our amaryllis bloomed this week.  I took a picture of Caroline beside it to get an idea of size.  It is one huge flower.

Caroline's four front teeth have all been coming in over the past few weeks.  We present progression of teeth:
She still has a closed mouth smile, though, and she's self-conscious if people make too much of a big deal about it.  She touches them all the time, though, and she's fascinated by the ridges on the bottom.  We're getting used to seeing her with teeth again.  She looks older!

We are down to four more weeks of school! The end is near!